Daycare Centers and Child Caregivers Have a Responsibility to Keep Children Safe
Any person, facility or business that has been entrusted with the child’s care and safety may be found responsible for not taking measures to prevent child accidents. If your child suffered a fatality or injury because of a careless or negligent caregiver then you may be able to seek compensation for the injuries that could have easily been avoided if proper care and attention had been exercised.
Day cares, nurseries and child care facilities must have a physical barrier between the children’s activity space and the kitchen. This is because the kitchen is filled with products and conditions that are hazardous to children’s health.
Highchair and Booster Seat Injury
Parents purchase high chairs and booster seats to make feeding young children easier. Most assume these products are safe but millions of these products have been recalled in recent years. Approximately 9,4000 children are treated in emergency rooms across the country every year for high chair or booster chair related injuries. That comes to 1 child every hour. A study performed by Clinical Pediatrics determined that 93% of all high chair and booster chair injuries involved a fall. 66% of the children injured by falls were climbing or standing in the chair. This suggests that the chair’s safety restraint system either was not being used or was ineffective.
Bucket Injury
From the mid 1980s to the late 1990s 327 children under the age of 5 years old died due to bucket-related drownings. The majority of these children were 7 to 15 months old. Most incidents involved 5 gallon buckets typically used for commercial and industrials materials. At the time of the drowning they were being used for household cleaning purposes and contained a combination of cleaning products and water.
Stoves and Ovens
Faulty stoves and tipping stove accidents have caused more than one hundred serious injuries and deaths from burn injuries caused by scalding liquids spilling off stove surfaces and from the weight of falling stoves crushing or pinning a person underneath it.
Gas and electric stoves are among the largest appliances found in the average American kitchen, and although they are large and take up a lot of space, they are surprisingly light and easy to topple — a toddler climbing on an open stove door can easily cause a stove to tip over. It is no wonder young children are most at risk for accidents involving stoves and ovens. Approximately 15,000 children are treated in emergency rooms across the country from oven and stove related burn injuries.
Accidental Poisoning
In 1970 Congress enacted the Poison Prevention packaging Act requiring manufacturers of medications, drugs and hazardous and toxic household products and chemicals to package their products in child-resistant packaging. After this law was passed poisoning deaths of children 5 years of age and under decreased from 200 every year to approximately 30.
The following precautions can prevent child kitchen injuries:
- Use the back oven burners whenever possible. This will keep oven flames out of children’s reach
- Turn boiling pot handles to the back of the oven
- Make sure oven is fastened to the wall or ground to prevent oven tipping accidents
- Use locking switch on the garbage disposal to prevent children to injuring their fingers, hands and wrists
- Add locks to dishwashers and ovens
- Add child safety locks to cabinets that contain potentially poisonous or hazardous household chemicals and products like dishwasher detergent, drain cleaner and multi-purpose cleaners.
Massachusetts Child Personal Injury and Wrongful Death Attorneys
Compassionate Accident Attorneys With A Proven Track Record And Experience In Dealing With Insurance Companies
Our law firm is well regarded when it comes to getting satisfactory results for our clients. If your child has been injured in a kitchen accident caused the by the careless or negligent actions of someone else, we can help you get the compensation you need to get proper medical treatment as well as to help you cover costs related to the accident including the cost of future treatments.
No matter where you are located, we are just a phone call away. Call an experienced Brockton child injury lawyer to schedule a free no-obligation case review and consultation at (508) 588-0422 and you will have taken your first step to find out how best to obtain civil justice and compensation for your injuries. You can also click here to use our Free Case Evaluation Form.
Our child injury trial lawyers assist clients throughout all of Massachusetts including, but not limited to, those in the following counties, cities and towns: Plymouth County, Brockton, Plymouth, Bridgewater, Marshfield, Hingham, Duxbury, Wareham, Abington, Rockland, Whitman, Hanson, Holbrook, Middleborough; Norfolk County including Quincy, Stoughton, Dedham, Weymouth, Braintree, Avon, Holbrook, Randolph, Canton, Sharon, Brookline, Franklin; Bristol County including New Bedford, Fall River, Taunton, Attleboro, Westport, Dartmouth, Mansfield, Easton, Raynham, Lakeville, Norton; Cape Cod, Hyannis, Falmouth, Barnstable and the Greater Boston area including Cambridge, Somerville, Medford, Everett, Lawrence, Lynn, Revere, Dorchester, Roxbury.
