Anchor the TV, Save a Child

 Today we’re going to talk about the safety of children.  No, we won’t be analyzing the disturbing view of some politicians that we should be arming elementary school teachers and principals. Nor will we be discussing the sad fate of one mom who owned many guns and trained her mentally disturbed son to use them. (As Michael Moore summed up this discussion in a brilliantly ironic tweet yesterday: “If only the first victim, Adam Lanza's mother, had been a gun owner, she could have stopped this before it started.”)  This is not a post about violence.  It’s a post about furniture.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued a new release called The Tipping Point: Highest Number of TV and Furniture Tip-Over Deaths Recorded By CPSC in 2011.  The CPSC, "is urging parents of young children to anchor and stabilize their televisions, furniture, and appliances to prevent tip-over related incidents. In a quest to reach a toy, TV or game remote, or other desired item, young children are using dressers and tables as climbing devices and the results are tragic."  Says CPSC in its release:

A new CPSC data report (pdf) issued today shows that 349 consumers (84 percent of them were children younger than age 9) were killed between 2000 and 2011, when TVs, furniture or appliances toppled over onto them. Last year (2011) had the highest one-year number of fatalities reported. The 41 recorded fatalities is an increase from 31 in 2010 and 27 in 2009. This total also may increase in future years as additional fatalities are reported.

Why on earth would there be such an increase?  There are some theories:

Some reports indicate that as families purchase or transition to flat screen televisions, their older and often heavier televisions are moved into bedrooms and other rooms in the house, without the proper stand or anchoring device accompanying them. Many of the reported fatalities occurred in bedrooms, living rooms and family rooms with 40 percent occurring in bedrooms and 19 percent occurring in living rooms or family rooms.

Here is what CPSC recommends:

• Anchor furniture to the wall or the floor.
• Place TVs on sturdy, low bases, or anchor the furniture and the TV on top the base, and push the TV as far back on the furniture as possible.
• Keep remote controls, toys, and other items that might attract children off of TV stands or furniture.
• Keep TV and/or cable cords out of reach of children.
• Make sure freestanding kitchen ranges and stoves are installed with anti-tip brackets.
• Supervise children in rooms where these safety tips have not been followed.

Turns out, funiture can be lethal too.  Child safety starts at home.

Comments

[Nancy Cowles]

Thanks for sharing this important information. Not noted in the CPSC release is the issue of furniture and television design. Dressers and other furniture items could be designed in such a way that more than one drawer won't open at a time, eliminating the 'stairs' effect that children use to climb AND designed to be weighted in such a way that they won't tip over so easily. For the furniture and TV's you own today, please follow CPSC advice and anchor. For the future, let's put creative minds to work making safer furniture.