Florida Child Injury Law Blog

Posts Tagged ‘death’

Child safety advocates in Palm Beach County have come up with an inexpensive idea to help parents and caregivers remember when there’s a baby in the back seat of their vehicle.

The Safety Council of Palm Beach County along with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office and others will be giving out 10,000 blue silicone bracelet for caregivers to wear when a child is in the car; if the caregiver still has the bracelet on after leaving the car, the child is likely still there.

Two children have died this year after being forgotten in vehicles in Florida. Six such deaths were recorded in 2010.

Jim Dodson Law supports any and all efforts to prevent these tragedies. We  have reported in the past about a device that senses the child in the rear seat and gives an audible and persistent reminder to remove the child. Such a device should be mandated on new car models. Until that happens, drivers are encouraged to use any means at their disposal to avoid forgetting. The bracelets are a good first step in raising awareness of the problem.  To get your free bracelet call the Safety Council @ (561) 845-8233.

Florida child injury attorney Jim Dodson is a longtime advocate for child safety.  He provides information to the public on keeping children safe and has a free consumer guide on legal steps needed to recover damages when the worst happens and  child is injured or killed due to someone’s negligence at http://jimdodsonlaw.com/category/library/child-injury/.

One of the most difficult things to report on is the preventable death of a young child. But if our reporting these tragic accidents can alert families, relatives, and caregivers to the dangers and increase everyone’s vigilance when children are present, we will have performed a useful service.

A release from Associated Press reports that a toddler, 2-year-old Mark Andrew Van Cott, drowned Thursday evening in a lake bordering the backyard of his grandparents’ home in a St. Petersburg’s Brighton Bay area.

The toddler was playing inside the house while his grandparents were preparing dinner. They suddenly noticed he was no longer around and began searching the house for him.

The child’s grandfather then went to search the back yard and saw him lying face down in the lake near the shore. He pulled the little boy from the water and began CPR, which was continued until paramedics arrived.

The young child had apparently gotten out of the house through an open sliding glass door leading to a screened in back porch, and then got out through a screen door that was not secured. The lake is about 60 feet from the house.

The family said that he was not out of sight for more the five minutes before being found in the lake.

Drowning is the number one cause of death in children under 5 in Florida. These tragic child deaths can be prevented by making certain that all doors that could give a child access to water are properly secured, and ensuring that an adult is assigned to keep a watchful eye on a child who is playing anywhere in the vicinity of water.

Imagine this scenario: In a pleasant subdivision in Florida, where everyone knows everyone else and people feel secure allowing their kids to play outside with friends, the neighborhood kids, ranging from five and up, all seem to be having fun. One of the younger children tries the door to her mother’s car, parked in the driveway. It is unlocked, so she climbs in and starts playing around with the controls.  There is no key in the ignition, and the parking brake is on.  She leans her head out the window to wave at her older brother, and in doing so presses on the automatic window button. The window begins to rise.  She can’t stop it, and in seconds, her neck is trapped.  She tries to call for help, but can’t get enough breath to speak, and so she groans.  The other kids laugh, thinking she’s just fooling around, pretending.  Within minutes, she’s dead.

Does this seem farfetched? It isn’t. Injuries and deaths from power windows are not uncommon. The story above is true. Since 1990 over 50 children have been killed by power windows, and the number of child injuries caused by these windows is in the thousands—serious injuries, including traumatic brain injuries and amputations of fingers—and most  of the victims are three years old and younger.

How could this terrible tragedy have been prevented?  What if the automatic windows in the car had reversed when coming into contact with the child, much the way elevator doors do if they close on someone? 

Consider these facts about automatic reversal technology:

• ARS technology would only cost around $6 per car window. 
• Eight out of ten new vehicles sold in Europe and most American cars sold overseas include ARS technology, but fewer than half of the vehicles produced by major US automakers and sold in the United States have this technology.

 In 2009, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration conducted a study aimed at deciding if they should require automatic reversing systems (ARS) technology in cars manufactured or sold in the United States. NHTSA decided ARS is not necessary. At the time, the information now available had not been completely assembled.

 Not necessary? If even one child injury or death is caused by a power window, we contend that preventing this unnecessary harm is absolutely necessary.  And one might ask how it is that European children deserve this protection more than our own.  Who among us would be unwilling to pay an additional $24 when buying a car to assure that our nation’s children are safe from these devastating injuries?

We keep our little ones safely ensconced in the back seat of the car, belted and padded, out of harm’s way. But what happens if while a busy mom is running errands, dashing here and there, with so many things on her mind, the child in that nice, safe seat falls asleep? And the unthinkable happens—Mom, distracted, gets out of the car and forgets the sleeping child in the back. The closed car becomes an oven. As the sun shines through the glass, the greenhouse effect pushes the temperature higher and higher. Hyperthermia—heatstroke—sets in, and the result is death.

“What kind of parent allows such a thing to happen?” you ask. Tragically, the answer is good parents, according to a University of South Florida professor of neuroscience, the St. Petersburg Times reported in a July 29^th article. David Diamond studied 50 of the cases of child death from hyperthermia as a result of being left in cars, and in every case, he found that otherwise good parents experiencing a combination of sleep deprivation, stress, and change in routine had suffered a memory lapse.

Children here in Florida are at a greater risk because of our intense summer heat. Children should never be left in cars, even for a moment. KidsAndCars.org, an organization dedicated to preventing child injury and death in cars, suggests that when you first get in, put something you absolutely must have—like your purse—on the back seat next to the child, to avoid forgetting to take your child with you.

Our child injury blog includes this very difficult subject to raise public awareness and because we are committed to keeping children safe. One child injury or one child death is one too many.

 It’s official! As of June 28, 2011, there is a federal ban on the manufacture, sale and resale of drop side cribs. Drop side cribs have been blamed in the deaths of more than 30 infants and toddlers. And they are suspected in about dozen other infant fatalities. The cribs have a side rail that can be raised and lowered to allow parents to more easily place or lift a baby.

 Another encouraging and significant change in child safety is a new standard that mandates more rigorous safety tests for children’s cribs before they go on the market. CPSC chairman said these are the toughest safety standards in the world.

 New cribs will have all 4 sides fixed and will be sturdier due to tougher testing requirements.

 CPCS says hotels, day care centers and companies that rent cribs have until December 28, 2012 to purchase cribs that meet the new safety standards. A baby’s crib is the biggest and most important purchase a parent makes for a new baby. Thankfully, parents will have  safe options with these new safety standards.

“When Kids Suffer Big Injuries,” a free guide available to families in Florida who need answers after a child suffers a  serious injury.

Call 1-727-446-0840, for yours today.

As of June 2011, cribs will be  required to have fixed sides rather than the familiar drop-side crib models. The drop-side models are dangerous because their design places infants and toddlers at risk of serious and even fatal injuries.

 The ban on drop-side cribs was announced recently by the government after millions of recalls and the tragic deaths of more than 30 infants and toddlers over the past 10 years. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (USCPSC) voted unanimously to forbid the manufacture, sale and resale of the cribs which feature a side rail that moves up and down.

 Businesses, like hotels and childcare centers who use drop-side cribs, are prohibited to continue using the cribs and will be given a year to buy new ones. During the last 5 years, there has been a recall of 9 million drop-side cribs in the U.S. The cribs pose serious safety issues because of assembly problems and hardware that malfunctions causing the drop side rail to partially detach from the crib. When this occurs, a gap between the side rail and mattress is created in which a child can become trapped and suffocate or strangle.

The CPSC has ordered tougher safety testing for cribs and improved labeling on crib pieces to reduce assembly mistakes that can put children at risk.

This new crib standard is one of the strongest in the world and will greatly reduce crib-related hazards.

Clearwater Child Injury Lawyer Jim Dodson, author of the free consumer guide, “When Kids Suffer Big Injuries,” and your online resource for consumer health and safety tips, product recalls, and legal information related to child accident and injury prevention.

-Working to make safety, every child’s reality.

School sports programs are beginning again with the new school year. And with that, our Clearwater Child Injury law firm provides some safety tips to preventing sports injuries.

The CDC reports almost 800,000 children under the age of 15 are treated in emergency rooms every year for injuries related to playing sports.  Tragically, many of our children die on playing fields as a result of some type of head trauma, head injury or underlying heart condition. 

 So how could sports injuries and serious accidents be prevented?  Vincent Iannelli, M.D., a board certified pediatrician and Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, suggests some of the following tips:

• Don’t let your children play through pain
• Encourage your child to warm up before exercising
• Ensure that your child is playing with youths of the same age group
• Check that the playing surfaces are properly maintained
• Teach your children to avoid dietary supplements such as GHB, GBL and so called performance enhancing substances
• Make sure adults trained in CPR are supervising your children

 Dr. Iannelli’s report also offers a significant amount of material related to heat stroke and important information from the American Heart Association – recommended reading for all parents whose children play sports. 

Clearwater Child Injury Attorney Jim Dodson represents families who have suffered serious injury or death due to the careless act of another.  Please call our office today for a No Cost evaluation of your legal case, toll free at 1-888-340-0840.

 35,000 bottles of Scope Original Mint Mouthwash have been recalled in a cooperative manner between U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and the manufacturer, Proctor and Gamble.  The recalled bottles have the number 4 on the bottom.    

 The one liter size bottles are being recalled due to malfunctioning child-resistant caps.  Proctor and Gamble also omitted an important message on that bottles in not stating, “This Package for Households without Young Children.” 

 One of the ingredients contained in the mouthwash, ethyl alcohol, is toxic.  Ethyl alcohol can cause serious injury or death if ingested by a child.   Every seven minutes a child under the age of 5 goes to the Emergency Room because of an unintentional poisoning.  Household products are responsible for 60% of the poisoning accidents with children under 5.   

 There have been no incidents or injuries reported.

Thousands of deaths and injuries occur each year as the result of children playing with fire.   More often than not, preschoolers and kindergarten age boys and girls are responsible for fire accidents, primarily because they have played with matches and lighters.  Sadly they are most likely to die from burn injuries.

 Children & Fire:  Facts & Figures

In 2006 children playing with fire started an estimated 14,500 structural fires

• 63% of all fire-related playing fatalities are children 5 and under
• Matches and lighters are involved in 80% of deaths and injuries started by children while playing

 Just last week a Tampa family was forced to leave their house due to a fire started by their 8-year-old child while his mother was away.  The boy who had been playing with matches set fire to a mattress that had been leaning against the house.  The fire erupted through the wood framed house and spread to the attic.  The damages were said to be worth $75,000.  The flames were so intense that the vinyl siding on a neighbor’s house was melted.  Fortunately, there were no injuries. 

Although this fire appears to have occurred outside of the home, the National Fire Protection Association states that people have nearly a 50% better chance of surviving a residential fire if their home has the recommended number of smoke alarms. Click on the link for additional safety tips provided by the National Fire Protection Association.

Clearwater Florida Child Burn Injury lawyer, working to make safety every child’s reality.

Is there a flaw in the free Safebeat EKG testing being offered to Hillsborough County schools through All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg?

According to an online report, some local medical experts think so. 

Cardiologist, Jorge McCormack is exercising caution with the program.  In almost 20 years at Pediatric Cardiology Associates, McCormack says he has seen many children who have life-threatening heart conditions, but EKG’s have not revealed their problem.  The reason?  EKGs won’t detect irregularities of the coronary arteries, the second-leading cause of death in young athletes. Occasionally they’ll pick up on rhythm disorders.

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