Minnesota Adopts First Bleacher Law.

It's a time of entertainment and fun, the shouts of the crowd, the excitement of the athletes--and then it is marred by the screams of tragedy.

Almost 20,000 people are hurt every year in accidents in bleachers or grandstands. One of those victims in early 1999 was a young boy, Toby Lee, 6, of Minnesota, who fell to his death through a gap in the bleacher floorboards. The boy was attending a hockey game when he catapulted to the ground, and died as a result of his injuries. Another child, Marisa Rose Trevino, 3, fell through a 13-inch gap in bleacher floorboards in Devine, Texas, last August and died.

Of the number injured in bleacher accidents each year, 11,000 are hurt by falls through those floorboard gaps, and 82 percent of those injured are under age 15.

As a result, the Minnesota Legislature passed the Bleacher Safety Act...