Chances are you’ve known someone who’s had surgery on their ankle, knee, shoulder, wrist or other joint in their body, and afterward, they’ve had pain and needed help. And chances are that person’s doctor had them use cryotherapy or a cold therapy system to remove heat, reduce pain and ease inflammation.

If so, this means there’s another chance: that your friend or loved one suffered a cryotherapy injury after such cold therapy treatment. They may have had nerve damage, skin damage and extreme, sustained pain.

This happens in part because such cold therapy systems are supposed to be applied by patients, yet do not provide them with adequate instructions. The cold therapy machine — a cooler with icy water, a pump and a cooling pad placed on the body — can be set at too low of a temperature or used for too long of a time. And that can cause cryotherapy injury.

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Child safety requires constant vigilance on the part of parents and anyone who takes care of small children. But even those persons can be led astray, as with accident injuries from defective products that claim to be safe for kids. That was the case with a 16-month-old boy who was found strangled to death in his crib by his mother in 2007, with a window shade cord wrapped around his neck.

According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, around 500 young children have died due to such cords since the early ’80s, or about one per month. Clearly, such shades and blinds are potentially deadly products, yet the federal government hasn’t mandated that their manufacturers make them more safe. Instead, it’s let the industry police itself.

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The negligence of Toyota toward innocent American consumers seems to know no end. The latest sign of Toyota putting profits over public safety is found in an internal Toyota document from July 6, 2009, in which a company executive bragged that it was saving $100 million by negotiating a limited recall for Lexus ES and Toyota Camry vehicles for accelerator malfunctions.

That limited recall may have saved Toyota millions at the time, but Toyota’s failure to address the problem fully led to more stuck accelerator car crash accidents and what’s now become the largest recall in its history: more than 8 million vehicles.

The month after the Toyota executive boasted about saving money on the limited recall, a family of four riding in a Lexus in California was killed when its gas pedal stuck to a floor mat. It wasn’t until November of 2009 that Toyota issued a full recall to fix the gas pedals of its defective products.

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Toyota and Lexus cars have a defect, and as a result, Americans are dying. It’s a stuck accelerator pedal, which gets snagged on a floor mat. Braking alone will not stop a car that’s in full and constant acceleration, which is why scores of Americans have been injured or killed.

Last October, four people died near San Diego due to a stuck Toyota accelerator pedal. They were a California Highway Patrol officer and his family of three. Almost four million such vehicles are on America’s roads.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration investigated and initially dismissed many incidents, though hundreds were reported. Yet the accidents, injuries and fatalities mounted. Finally, the NHTSA and Toyota — which also owns Lexus — asked drivers of the defective Toyota and Lexus vehicles to remove their driver’s side floor mat and not replace it. This safety measure pertains to models from 2004-2010.

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American babies are being harmed by strollers which are supposed to protect them. Instead, certain model numbers of Alano, Passage, Travel Systems and Spree Strollers are causing fingertip amputations or cut fingers in infants who put their digits in canopy hinges as strollers open or close.

Graco Children’s Products Inc. of Atlanta, which produces the strollers sold at Target, Wal-Mart and other retailers, this week issued a recall of 1.5 million strollers, all made in China. Other retailers selling them between October 2004 and last December are Kmart, Sears, Fred Meyer, Burlington Coat Factory, AAFES, Navy Exchange, Meijer, Babies R Us and Toys R Us.

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