Every day, families in America watch television that both entertains and educates. Yet most parents would be surprised to learn that there is a potential hazard lurking in the living room: televisions and other heavy furniture tipping over and injuring children.
Flat screen televisions, which are top-heavy and have narrow bases, can tip over from an entertainment center or table with the pull of an ambitious two-year old exploring his new limits and boundaries. Large, heavy and old cathode ray tube (CRT) televisions placed on dressers or high furniture could also slide off when a child tries to climb the drawers to reach the television or whatever else may be on top. Because of its weight, a 36-inch CRT television falling three feet creates the same momentum as a 1-year-old child falling 10 stories.
An alarming number of children are harmed in the U.S. each year by a television tipping over. In fact, between 2000-2010, on average, every three weeks a child died from a television tipping, according to a U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission Report (CPSC).
Did you know that every 45 minutes, or less than the length of a Sesame Street episode, a child is sent to the emergency department?
Children aged 5 and under are at the greatest risk for injury, accounting for 72% of the injuries and 88% of hospitalizations among children.
The economic costs are substantial: approximately $8.3 million is spent each year in medical costs to treat children aged 19 and under in emergency departments for injuries from television tip-overs.
And, even more troubling, the frequency of these injuries is increasing. There was a 31% increase in the number of injuries in children aged 19 and under from 2002 to 2011.
Every one of these injuries and deaths is completely preventable. The goals of this report are to elevate the issue of television and furniture tip-overs in the national conversation and to discover and address the challenges that prevent parents from securing heavy items in their homes.
Safe Kids Worldwide, through the support of SANUS, provides new analysis of the risk posed by television tip-overs to children. This research complements the ground- breaking work by the CPSC in identifying this emerging hazard, as well as earlier analyses of tip-over-related injuries.
In a recent survey, It was found that injuries caused by televisions tipping over are not on most parents’ minds. Three out of four parents haven’t heard about televisions tipping and injuring children. Only one in four parents mounts their flat screen television to the wall.
The top three reasons why respondents to survey said they don’t mount their televisions to the wall are:
- Parents are concerned about damaging the wall
- They don’t think that it matters, and
- They are worried that the television might fall off of the wall
Despite these concerns, 46% of parents feel that securing a flat screen television to a wall is the safest place to put it.
Educating the community will empower parents and caregivers of young children to secure televisions and furniture and protect children from these injuries. Parents can embrace these safety measures as part of a larger child-proofing effort in their homes, much as toddler gates and electrical socket covers have become an every-day part of keeping kids safe in the home.
It is recommended that parents and caregivers conduct a television safety check of their homes, evaluating the safety of televisions and furniture and making sure that they are secured to the wall. By taking these steps, you can prevent unnecessary injuries and deaths, and keep your children safe from tip-overs.
TV SAFETY CHECK:
- Assess the stability of the TVs in your home
- Secure TVs: Mount flat screen TVs to the wall to reduce the risk of TVs toppling off stands
- If you have a large, heavy old-style cathode ray tube (CRT) TV, place it on a low, stable piece of furniture