Over the holiday season, toys are a very common gift for children in Del Mar, Hillside, Nye and throughout Laredo. While most children love to receive things that they can play with, a personal injury lawyer knows that new products coming into the house can sometimes endanger young people.
Parents need to be aware that there is risk of danger whenever new products are introduced into the home, but this is especially true where children are involved. Understanding injury and death statistics and checking the website of the Consumer Product Safety Commission for recalls can help parents to keep their kids safe from harm.
Protecting Kids from Unsafe Toys This Holiday Season
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has published a report on the number of injuries and deaths due to toys that occurred over the course of 2013. According to the data:
- There were nine kids killed because of toy-related injuries during 2013. A total of seven out of the nine deaths involved children being asphyxiated. A total of 22 percent of the kids who were killed during this year died while using riding toys.
- There were 256,700 visits to the emergency room made by children who had been injured as result of playing with a toy. Approximately 44 percent of the injuries that sent kids to the emergency room involved their faces or heads.
The CPSC has been working to try to reduce the number of injuries that result due to unsafe toys. The agency has strict testing standards for products entering the country and has teamed up with U.S. Customs to keep out products that have not undergone testing for things like lead at an independent testing agency.
The CPSC indicates that the rate of injuries due to toys has generally remained steady. Since it is the agency's job to try to keep kids safe, it is natural for them to tout the most optimistic view. However, reports from News 10 show that this may not be the whole truth when it comes to the number of children who are harmed by toys.
According to the independent news report, in 1990 there was an injury rate of 18.9 kids hurt by toys for every 10,000 children. By 2011, the rate of injured kids rose to 26.9 out of every 10,000 kids. The reason for the increase was largely electronic scooters, which caused a 40 percent rise in child injury rates. Parents need to know that these electronic scooters, or kick scooters as they are sometimes called, are one of the leading reasons for young people to get hurt.
While scooters may be especially dangerous, they are not the only toy that could harm children. The CPSC has indicated that there were 30 different toys recalled during the 2013 year because the products turned out to be harmful to children. In one case, the toy that was taken off the market had elevated levels of lead.
Parents should check carefully whether any toys that their children receive for the holidays are prone to causing injury or have been recalled due to a safety defect.
If you are dealing with child injury, contact us today. The Law Office of John R. Solis has experience protecting the rights of injury victims in Del Mar, Hillside, Nye, Laredo and across Texas. Call 866-465-9093 for a free case consultation.