According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, about eight children die each year from falls out of windows and another 3,300 are treated in emergency rooms for injuries because of window falls.
National Window Safety Week comes at a good time, as the weather is getting nicer and more people think to open windows in their homes, but that can put kids at risk for falls.
To prevent falls from windows, the CPSC recommends that parents:
- install window guards (if on or below the 6th floor of a building) or window stops on all windows
- keep furniture away from windows
- open double hung windows from the top only
- remember that a screen might keep bugs out, but it won't keep your child from falling out of a window
Window guards (gates on the window) should have a quick release mechanism that you understand how to use, so that they can be opened in case of a fire.
It is also important to encourage kids to not play near windows. The importance of this safety advice is highlighted by a very recent case in Bellingham, Massachusetts, in which two kids were playing frisbee in a room of their third story apartment, and one boy ended up falling out the window, 35 feet to the ground below.
And just a week ago, a two-year-old fell from the second story window in Millville, New Jersey, as he was either leaning on or pushing on a window screen, and a one-year-old fell four stories in Las Vegas, as he 'slipped through a hole in a window screen.'
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National Window Safety Week, April 3-9
Window Safety and Preventing Falls
Window Gates and Guards
Hidden Dangers
