| Mar 08 |
Child safety strangled by window shade cord defective products
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. |
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.
| Aug 03 |
Don’t let playground child safety slide; tips to guard against hazards
Safe Kids USA, an organization supported by Jim Adler, founder of Jim S. Adler & Associates, knows the numbers. Safe Kids finds that 200,000 children yearly wind up in an ER after a playground mishap. Of those, about 90,000 suffer serious injuries, such as a broken bone — and 15 kids die. Vigilant parents can keep such harm from happening, starting at home and extending to the proper maintenance of playground facilities. As USA Today warned in a recent report, parents should ensure their kids aren’t wearing necklaces or clothing with drawstrings near the neck. Such things can get snagged on playground equipment and, with a fall, can choke a child — perhaps strangle him or her. So don’t even leave home when such a hazard dangles from a child’s neck. |
Kids and play — an unbeatable combo. But not always. Sometimes, playground safety hazards can turn a carefree day into a traumatic trip to an emergency room.| Jul 01 |
Rash of Texas child drownings begs for greater pool safety
The Houston Chronicle reports that this June, in fact, was the state’s deadliest month for child drownings since such tallies were taken starting in 2005. A majority of child drowning victims were toddlers 1 to 4 years old who succumbed in private home swimming pools. |
In June, Texas lost an average of one child a day to drowning. That’s 30 of the state’s 60 child drownings for the entire first half of the year, and all in one month — a month when pool activity escalates, and so do kids’ chances of losing their young lives.| Jun 29 |
Non-crash car accident child deaths must end
Besides protecting the child’s life, you may be helping your own. Increasingly, parents are being arrested and charged with such offenses as child abuse, child neglect or child endangerment. The last can be a felony leading to a jail sentence. Was it worth it to leave the child alone while you went inside a store for some cigarettes? |
Enough is enough. Too many children have died when parents or guardians left them unattended in cars. As summer’s heat rises, such neglect, in effect, is a death sentence. Wake up, America, and don’t ever leave small children behind in a hot vehicle, which one emergency physician says is like “leaving your child in a lit oven.”| Jun 17 |
Child deaths in non-crash car accidents prompt NHTSA report
Across America, children are dying because parents or guardians who are in too big of a hurry or too much of a multi-tasking fog forget and leave them locked in a car as temperatures climb toward 100 degrees. Such a sad child death happened again Sunday in St. Augustine, Fla. Don’t let it happen on any day to the child for whom you are utterly responsible. |
In ancient times before cell phones, texting and other multi-tasks put safe driving in the back seat for too many people, we were often warned about leaving pets in a locked car on a hot day. But these days, even small children who are already in the back seat can be subjected to such dangerous indifference by distracted drivers who leave them in a car.| May 27 |
Tyson daughter’s death begs for child safety resolve
The treadmill wasn’t turned on, but clearly the cord was still dangerous. Normally such cords are clipped at one end to a treadmill user, so if the person falls, the cord will pull out of the machine at the other end and turn it off. In this case, little Exodus Tyson’s weight apparently wasn’t enough to pull out the cord, which instead became a noose. |
Again, tragedy has struck down an innocent child — and again, the tragedy was avoidable. Former heavyweight boxing champ | May 07 |
Car accident tragedies kill more kids than any other danger
That’s confirmed by the National Center for Statistics and Analysis, which says car accidents are the top cause of deaths in kids aged 2-14. The center also says car accidents injure 250,000 American kids yearly. With about 2,000 of them suffering fatal injury, children are the victims in 5 per cent of America’s fatal traffic accidents. And unlike adults, it’s safe to say that no such child has caused the car accident in which he or she died. |
Most parents are extremely protective of kids. But anytime they take them in a car or other vehicle they’re exposing them to the No. 1 killer of America’s children. Indeed, child safety advocate group Safe Kids USA reports that | Jun 23 |
Even a car seat may not be enough protection
Child safety seats are far more common today, now that each state has passed child occupant protection laws. Yet as many as 1,800 children under age 14 die annually in vehicle accidents. Even more disturbing is the fact that some of these children, like the child killed Sunday, were killed while sitting in a car seat. |
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