Tip-over dangers
US safety groups spreading word to parents about furniture mishaps at home.
TWO years after her son Shane was crushed by a falling dresser in the family’s home just outside Chicago in the US state of Illinois, Lisa Siefert drives to her advocacy work on the dangers of tip-overs with his car seat still in place.
She can’t bring herself to go into the bedroom where the two-year-old died, but gathers the will to talk about what happened because she didn’t know furniture should be anchored and wants to warn others to prevent another tragedy.
“When you walk into (a children’s store), you expect the products to be safe, but that’s not true,” said Siefert.
The dresser that fell on Shane two years ago was recalled in February by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission after an investigation found it to be hazardous. Several other actions focusing on tip-overs are pending or have been launched after the number of deaths and injuries to children from falling televisions and furniture keeps rising.
From 2000 to 2011, 349 people in the United States were killed in tip-overs, 84% of them younger than nine. In 2011, there were 41 deaths – the highest one-year total ever, according to the safety commission, which says that, on average, one child dies in a furniture tip-over every two weeks.
In addition, an estimated 43,000 individuals are injured each year in tip-overs, with almost 60% of them younger than 18, according to the commission.
The deaths and injuries are preventable, the commission says, but alerting new parents, caregivers and grandparents about safety straps and brackets requires co-ordination and cooperation from furniture and TV manufacturers and retailers, as well as physicians, hospitals and consumer groups.
“From stability to interaction with installers to the role parents can take, it’s an all-in approach to bring down an ever-increasing number of deaths,” said Scott Wolfson, a safety commission spokesman.
SafeKids Worldwide, a network of organisations working to prevent injuries to children, was spurred to act after monitoring reports from emergency rooms and the commission about tipovers, said Kate Carr, president and CEO of the Washington, DCbased group.
As Siefert, who has a daughter, Darby, born 2½ years before Shane, speaks to groups, she asks if people secure their furniture and often gets blank stares, she said. She also hears that people don’t want to damage their walls or floors by installing restraints.
“People say they don’t need straps because they watch their kids. But sometimes, accidents happen in front of parents. I tell them I took all the safety measures I knew about, but this is my son,” she said, holding up a brochure with a photo of Shane in monster truck earmuffs, a month before his death.
The brochure offers safety tips and is part of the work of the non-profit Shane’s Foundation, started by Siefert to warn parents about tip-overs.
“I can rationalise that we never knowingly put him in harm’s way, but still, as parents, we’re responsible for his safety,” she said.
Shane had never shown any inclination to climb on his dresser, which had small teddy bears behind clear plastic windows in compartments above the drawers but only a changing pad on top, Siefert said. Yet, on March 14, 2011, that’s what he must have done when he was in his room for his afternoon nap. When Siefert went to wake him, she found him under the dresser.
The Chicago-based Kids in Danger, which focuses on children’s product safety, may push to make mandatory what is now a voluntary standard on tip-overs for furniture manufacturers, said executive director Nancy Cowles.
“It should be assumed that furniture is safe,” if sold for children’s rooms, Cowles said. “Some companies do (comply with the standard), some don’t.”
By law, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission has limited ability to impose restrictions, Wolfson said. If a voluntary standard exists to curb a potential hazard and if it’s being complied with, the commission cannot force implementation, he said.
The voluntary standard for “clothing storage” containers, such as dressers, went into effect in 2009, based on testing by ASTM International, which develops technical standards for products, materials and services.
“We look at the stability of chests, if they’re fully loaded and drawers are open,” said Len Morrissey, a director of standards development. “They must withstand the pull force of 50 pounds (23kg),” the approximate weight of a five-year-old.
To comply with the standard, safety straps must be attached to chests and the furniture must carry tip-over warning labels, Morrissey said. Many retailers won’t sell chests unless they meet the standard, and manufacturers will advertise that they meet ASTM criteria, he said.
The standard will be updated this month, with the major change clarifying how to test the stability of drawers, he said. This had been unclear to some foreign manufacturers and needed to be consistently applied for tests to be valid.
How many manufacturers are complying with the standard is difficult to quantify because there’s no formal means of keeping track.
Indiana-based B. Walter & Co has produced tip-over restraints for 10 years and sells them to several large furniture manufacturers, said Art Jasen, president and CEO. But a lot of furniture is made by small companies and “they’re not that aware of what needs to be done to provide the safety factor for their furniture,” he said.
Any push to make the standard mandatory would face tough odds at the Consumer Product Safety Commission, where relatively few restrictions have been imposed on the many thousands of products it oversees.
That leaves SafeKids, Siefert and others to focus on retailers. They would like to create the kind of pressure that leads stores to only sell dressers that meet the standard and to make straps or other anchors readily available.
Creating sufficient awareness about tip-overs to actually change consumer behaviour can be a long process, said Carr of SafeKids, citing initial reluctance about seat belts and child car seats.
“This is completely a 100% preventable problem,” she said. “If making the standard mandatory is the only way to accomplish it, we’ll advocate for that, but we’re hoping companies will put notices on furniture and then parents will take them seriously and take action in their homes.” – Chicago Tribune/McClatchy-Tribune Information Services