Preventing deadly tip-overs
On April 3, 2012, my 2-and-a-half-year-old daughter Chance was killed at home in an easily preventable incident — the kind that, in the next few months, our elected officials can keep from ever happening again.
I was in the bathroom, and Chance was running back and forth between me and her then-6-year-old brother, who was watching television in a nearby room. Each time, I’d pretend to hide behind the door; she’d find me, and we’d both laugh and say “I love you” to one another.
A couple minutes passed. Then her brother appeared in the bathroom, crying. The TV and the dresser it was on top of had fallen. Chance was underneath a dresser, unconscious. She was rushed to the hospital, but neither the doctors nor my frantic prayers could save her. She died the next day.
More than eight years later, hardly a waking hour goes by when I don’t think of my perfect angel, her joyous laughter, the way her voice could melt my heart with a single word. But now I’m trying to use our misfortune to keep other families from suffering a similar heartbreak.
Furniture tip-overs are a serious problem
You might think our story sounds like a freak accident, a sad but extremely rare occurrence. Unfortunately, that’s wrong. A piece of furniture, appliance or television tips over and injures someone in the U.S. once every 20 minutes. Since 2000, at least 210 people—mostly children ages 6 and younger—have been killed when dressers or other furniture that store clothes have tipped over.
This doesn’t have to happen to another child. One way to prevent tip-over injuries and deaths is to make sure that all furniture is truly stable.
I believe our elected officials can make that happen, and some of them are already trying. Sen. Tom Cotton from my home state of Arkansas is a co-sponsor of a bill called the Stop Tip-overs of Unstable, Risky Dressers on Youth (STURDY) Act. If passed, the STURDY Act would require every dresser sold in the U.S. to pass strong stability tests before going on the market.
Not much to ask of manufacturers
They already have a voluntary standard that says dressers and other clothing storage units that are 27 inches high and taller should have to pass stability tests. Many of them already comply. The STURDY Act would require the Consumer Product Safety Commission to make a strong testing standard mandatory for all dressers sold in the U.S.
The U.S. House has already passed a version of the STURDY Act. And U.S. Senator Tom Cotton’s co-sponsorship — for which I am deeply thankful — is a great start in the Senate.
I hope Arkansas senior Sen. John Boozman will join Sen. Cotton in supporting the bill. And from our neighboring states, Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee serve on the powerful Senate Commerce Committee, which has to approve the bill before the full Senate can vote on it. I urge all Senators to come together to support the STURDY Act and approve it—immediately.