" ... Family members told Houston Police Department Homicide Sergeant R. Oliva and Officer B. Nabors that Lizzete Pena was in the living room with her mother, great-grandmother and other relatives watching television at the time of accident. Lizzete threw a small toy that landed on top of the television. When she stepped on a shelf of the TV stand to retrieve it, the stand tipped over and the television landed atop her, HP said.
Family members lifted the TV off of Lizzete who was unconscious and unresponsive. HFD paramedics arrived and transported the child to Memorial Hermann Hospital where she later died from head trauma. ..."
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>>>I'm posting this to warn all FReeper parents, and especially grandparents without childproofed homes, about what has happened here in Houston.
Two children, ages 2 and 3, have been killed here in Houston just in the past 5-6 days from having the family TV topple over on them.
This little girl died today when she pulled a TV down off of a too-small tv stand on which it was perched. She had climbed the cabinet. The little 2-yo boy earlier in the week pulled his family's TV down from where it sat on top of two speakers. TV news said they were big-screen TV's, but one was 45" and I'm not sure the size of the other one.
What is so unusual about this is that "only" 6 deaths per year are attributed to this kind of accident in the whole US - here, we've had two in a week. So, please be careful if you have small children in the home - there are ways to secure the TVs to the wall, so this can't happen.
Another frightening statistic is that 17,000 injuries or hospital visits per year are attributed to this same type of accident. To have "only" 6 deaths per year out of that is pretty remarkable - but having 2 in one week here means something else is going on that needs to be controlled.
Time to ban high capacity (inch) TVs.....for the children.
You are in favor of television positioning regulation then.
For sure, more laws can fix this.. yep.
Man that's a shame. Poor little thing, prayers for that poor family.
I had to strap down our set because the floor in this old house is slightly unlevel and bouncy in that spot. Every time the dogs ran by, it tried to shake until I got it fastened. I was afraid it would land on them.
I had our large flat screen mounted to the wall for this very reason. Well, also to protect the TV from the nefarious children.
-From 1996 through 1999, CPSC received reports of 58 children under age 5 who drowned in 5-gallon buckets.
-CPSC has received reports of 16 children under age 5 who drowned in toilets between 1996 and 1999.
Like what? Do you think the Democrats are trying to thin out the Republican ranks? Is it the FBI? Or maybe Karl Rove's weather machine has run amok?
As for me and my family, this is so series that we're all setting our beebers to stune.
Poor baby. :-(