New WINDOW BLIND SAFETY CAMPAIGN FOR 2011
One couple's ingenuity aims to prevent domestic tragedy
When a child dies in avoidable circumstances and the authorities are found be culpable in any way, a public outcry is inevitable. Furious demands for lessons to be learned and procedures to be tightened are long and loud.
Strange, then, that when six children died in tragic circumstances in Britain and Ireland in 2010, the furore was somewhat muted. Each was killed in what should have been the safety of their own homes yet few lessons have been learned and preventative procedures remain largely ineffective.
Each of these children was strangled by looped cords of window blinds. Each death was an unspeakable tragedy. Each was avoidable, too, yet the death toll from window blind cords is rising. It's a trend of which everyone associated with the window blind industry should be ashamed.
Pat and John Astley, whose home overlooks the bustling River Clyde on the west coast of Scotland, were not prepared to sit back and watch the situation worsen in the absence of legislation banning blinds with dangerous cords. They realised that even if legislation was to be passed immediately, it would be practically impossible to recall each of the estimated 250million window blinds in UK homes.
Something more needed to be done. They set out to do it.
John and Pat should be enjoying a comfortable retirement. It's part of the reward for many years of hard and back-breaking graft they put into transforming their small industrial cleaning concern into one of the most successful businesses of its kind in the UK.
When they retired from the business five years ago they might have looked forward to spending more time with their grandchildren and doing all the things that working excessive hours had denied them for decades. Today, however, they are once again driven to achieve business success. This time it's a matter of life and death, literally.
When they heard of a young girl dying while playing happily at home they were both deeply affected. The girl suddenly became entangled in the looped cord hanging from the window blinds. Instantly, it wrapped round her neck like a noose, throttling her. She died.
How could such a seemingly innocent item present in millions of UK homes suddenly become a lethal threat, they asked?
Pat said: "As a mother and grandparent of 10, I realised that unsafe window blind cords are a tragedy waiting to happen but, like most people, I was completely unaware of the scale of the problem.
"There are millions of potential death traps in homes across the UK. No wonder that children have died and others have been injured across the world."
John added: "Our journey leading to the creation of a remedy started with this stark reality and has taken us down many roads; some leading to success others to frustration.
"It took a little while to realise that, in spite of the dangers, very little had happened in terms of a safe solution."
When the Astleys researched window blind cords further they became even more alarmed. In the US, the Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates about 500 children have strangled on the cords of blinds and shades since the early 1980s, an average of about one child each month.
Legislation has since been forthcoming in the US, and in Canada and Australia, too, to ban hanging looped cords from all new blinds. No such moves have been made in the UK. In an official response to an e-petition in 2010 seeking such a ban in Britain, the Government remained unmoved.
In a statement, a spokesman said: "We understand that one or two young children die each year in the UK from blind cord strangulation. These are tragic accidents and our sympathies go to the families who have lost their children, however the Government does not believe a case has been made for the measure requested in the e-petition.
"The major concern is not the banning of the cords through regulation, but the millions of blinds with looped cords that are already in consumer's homes."
That final paragraph shook Pat and John to the core. It seemed that the British Government was admitting that the scale of the problem was just too big to tackle. The loss of some child lives was less important than the difficulty of enacting legislation, apparently. Unsurprisingly, Pat and John did not agree.
They first began taking action to develop a solution of their own five years ago. Their aims were straightforward - any safety device that solved the problem of dangling cords had to be cheap to buy, simple to fit, easy to operate and maintenance free, and it had to eradicate the problem completely.
Other solutions had been used, from simple cleats to cord shorteners, but none was the comprehensive solution they believed was essential.
As they pondered the problem the tragic deaths continued. In February 2008, two-year-old Muireann McLaughlin died at her home in Menstrie, near Stirling, after becoming entangled in a looped window blind cord. She was waving goodbye to her grandmother moments before she fell into the cord.
Muireann's father, Angus McLaughlin, described finding his daughter as a "vision from hell".
Her mother, Katie McLaughlin, said: "As with most parents we had covered locks, stair-gates - all the obvious things. When we had the blind fitted we'd gone to a well-known local company, we wanted a quality service, we wanted a made-to-measure blind. It never occurred to us it could be dangerous".
Then, early in 2010, 16-month-old Lillian Bagnall-Lambe, of Stafford, died after becoming entangled in a blind. Five days earlier, also in Staffordshire, three-year-old Harrison Joyce was killed at his home after being left alone in a room for a matter of minutes.
His parents have since launched Harrison's Law, a campaign to have looped cords on curtains and blinds banned in the UK.
In Wales, Gethin Ifor Jones died just days before his second birthday in 2009 and in Ireland, Aida Foster lost her life in March, 2010, just yards from her six-months pregnant mother in the sitting room of their home in Piltown, County Kilkenny.
"Even if a ban was to be enacted tomorrow, the problem of existing blinds remains," said John. "Another domestic disaster could happen anyhere, at any time, and the problem is that millions of parents remain completely unaware of the silent killer lurking in their homes."
It's not just in the home that problems can occur. Thousand of public buildings in Britain, from council properties to doctor's waiting rooms and from leisure centres to schools and shops, have blinds with dangling looped cords hanging from them. Any one of them is a tragedy waiting to happen.
"We estimate that there could be 250million blinds with potentially lethal cords in the UK. That's why we felt we had to take action to prevent another tragedy happening to another innocent and unknowing family," he said.
Looped window blind cords also pose a serious threat to domestic pets such as dogs and cats who are also in danger of becoming entangled in them when they jump up on windowsills and play round the house.
A quick look round any home with window blinds shows the stark reality of the problem. Looped cords can be found close to kitchen worksurfaces, hanging beside picture windows in living rooms and, perhaps most dangerous of all, hanging within reach of a child's cot in a bedroom.
"The real danger is hidden because they look so innocent. It seems unthinkable that they could kill, but they can and they do," said Pat.
Turning Pat and John's ideas into reality took them more than four years and involved a series of seven design prototypes made by a manufacturing company in Ayrshire. After extensive testing and research a production deal for the final design was signed in the Far East. WindowBlindSafe, the first practical UK product to tackle the problem, was born and is now on the market.
"WindowBlindSafe brings peace of mind to families by providing a safe and easy way to stow and lock potentially lethal window blind cords and chains," said John. "Its patented tamper-proof system of keeping blind cords and chains safely out of harm's way can prevent tragedy."
The device fits on a wall close to the blind. The hanging cord is then wound round it with an ingenious patented tamper-proof ratchet system that allows it to be operated instantly by an adult but not by a child. If any downward pressure is put on the cord the device locks preventing the loop becoming a noose.
"It is simplicity itself, but then all good ideas are basically very simple," he added.
The production WindowBlindSafe meets all the targets the Astleys set themselves when they began the design process. It's cheap to buy, simple to fit, easy to operate and maintenance free. It meets all EU safety standards and is the only CE rated safety device of its kind available. It can be fitted in minutes to any type of blind cord, regardless of age or design.
The device has been tested by parents against other safety devices, such as cleats, cord shorteners, cord winders and split-cord tassels and has proved to be the only one that offers complete protection.
John added: "The international standards that the industry is asked to follow are extremely worrying. A recent article by UK Trading Standards officers highlights standard BS EN 13120:2009 (Internal Blinds - Performance Requirements Including Safety). In that document, clause 8.2 deals specifically with the risk of strangulation."
The requirements include the attachment of a warning notice to the product and in the instructions for use. The warning recognises that young children can strangle in the loop of pull cords, chains and tapes and can wrap cords round their necks. The advice it gives, however, is simply to keep the cords out of reach.
He said: "Can you imagine a bottle full of bleach or tablets having a warning sign hanging from it and instructions stating it must be kept out of children's reach if not fitted with a child-resistant top? Would this prevent a child from opening the cap and dying from poisoning?
"Absolutely not. A standard governing the safety of bottle caps was created in 1997 and updated constantly since. The risk might be different but the danger of death is identical so why not apply the same safety standard to Window Blinds?"
"This is what the window blind industry is asked to do and the standards they must meet. This is why six children died last year. More deaths are inevitable unless something is done now. In my discussions with politicians, the industry and some of its critics, nothing is likely to happen in 2011."
In response to industry complacency and the rising toll of tragedy, John developed a simple but devastating assessment for all window blind safety devices. Called the Wrap-A-Round test, it asks parents to check if a window blind cord or chain can be wrapped around a hand. If so, the blind and the room are unsafe for children.
Determined that something must be done to cut the growing death toll, John is launching a Zero Deaths Campaign to aim for Zero Deaths caused by window blinds in 2011. It has one key element, he said.
"We are asking ask every parent to conduct the Wrap-A-Round test. If a cord or chain can be wrapped around a hand then the blind and the room are unsafe for children. Parents must fit a safety device immediately or remove the blind."
John concluded: "The Window Blind Wrap-A-Round test must become a standard practice in all UK homes, workplaces and public buildings during 2011. To achieve our goal we look to editors, programme makers, producers, politicians, the industry, property managers, safety agencies, parents and the wider public to help us meet our zero target.
"Everyone has a responsibility to act now and if everyone backs this campaign, we can halt
Pat added: "I couldn't relax knowing that mums and dads across the country risk facing the heartbreak of losing a child and might be overwhelmed by the tragedies that have devastated the lives of s many others.
"There's no need for anyone to live in blind ignorance any more. WindowBlindSafe is a simple solution to securing their child's safety."
About the Author
Campaigning grandparents John and Pat Astley were horrified by the growing UK death toll of children killed by looped window blind cords and by the complacency of the industry and authorities to tackle it. They decided to do something about it. This is the story of their invention of WindowBlindSafe, the simple solution to securing a child's safety, and of their campaign to prevent any more children dying in tragic circumstances in the supposed safety of their own homes.
Thursday, 27 January 2011
Untitled
Friday, 10 December 2010
6 Children Strangled by Window Blinds in 2010 - Find out who is to blame.
The requirements include: The word "WARNING" must be in upper case and at least 8mm high. The rest of the text shall be in no less than 3mm high letters.
They go on:-
So this is what the Window Blind industry is asked to do and the standards they must meet and this is why 6 children died last year..
Monday, 15 November 2010
Window blinds recalled after death
Window shades, blinds recalled amid safety review
Updated: Monday, 15 Nov 2010, 7:23 AM EST Published : Monday, 15 Nov 2010, 7:23 AM EST
Here is yet further proof of the dangers lurking in our homes and what is happening in USA.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The death of a toddler who strangled in a window shade cord spurred a huge recall Wednesday, even as the industry crafts a better standard to make window coverings in American homes safer for children.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission says Hanover Direct Inc., of Weehawken, N.J., has agreed to recall about 495,000 roman shades and some 28,500 blinds. Hanover is the parent company for Domestications, The Company Store, and Company Kids.
CPSC says the 22-month-old boy in Cedar Falls, Iowa, became trapped in the pull cord of a roman shade in May. He was found hanging by his neck and was rescued by his father, but died later at a hospital.
The commission estimates that one child dies every month after strangling on the cords of blinds or roman shades.
Consumer safety groups have complained that the government and industry have been slow over the last two decades to cut child deaths from blinds. More recently, however, CPSC has stepped up its efforts to get safer window coverings on the market.
At a meeting of industry officials and consumer advocates at CPSC headquarters in Bethesda, Md., this week, the head of the commission urged manufacturers to move swiftly to approve new safety rules.
"Chart a new course today," said Chairman Inez Tenenbaum, "a course that promises to eliminate, not just mitigate, the risk of harm to children."
While there have been millions of blinds and shades recalled in the past several years, safety advocates say fatality rates haven't improved much and the process for moving safer designs to the market has been sluggish.
The problem is the cord on the blinds and shades that rolls them up and down. Young children can get tangled and trapped in the cords, leading to injuries and deaths. Since 1990, CPSC estimates that nearly 250 infants and young children have died from accidentally strangling on window cords.
Ralph Vasami, executive director of the Window Covering Manufacturers Association, says blinds and shades can be used by most people with no problem at all. "But there is a hidden risk to children," he said in an interview.
Vasami says manufacturers are pressing ahead to revise the current voluntary safety rules on the books, standards developed by industry. He expects to have new rules ready for a vote by next October.
Current standards for roman shades, Vasami says, call for them to be cordless; have cords that are inaccessible to children; or if the cord is in reach of a child, then it cannot be able to form a hazardous loop that could trap a child's head. That standard would likely serve as a model and be expanded to cover blinds in the new writing of standards under way.
Wednesday's recall involving Hanover is an expansion of a previous recall from October 2009 of about 90,000 roman shades. Thousands more roman shades as well as roller and roll-up blinds are now being called back. The products were sold through the company nationwide from January 1996 through October 2009.
So what is happening in UK?
Answer.
WindowBlindSafe is launched in January 2011 offering the first Child-Resistant Safety Device to meet all the requirements of the new Universal Window Blind Safety Guideline. To learn more, go to www.windowblindsafe.com
Governments across the World fail to take a action.
When the UK government faced an e-petition in early 2009 calling for a ban on all looped cords on window blinds, it was unmoved.
Even though blinds pose a clear and present danger to young children, an official spokesman said: “We understand that one or two young children die each year in the UK from blind cord strangulation. These are tragic accidents and our sympathies go to the families who have lost their children, however the Government does not believe a case has been made for the measure requested in the e-petition.
“The major concern is not the banning of the cords through regulation, but the millions of blinds with looped cords that are already in consumer’s homes.”
Those campaigning for a ban on all blinds with cords are, understandably, looking to the future, but with an estimated 250million window blinds already in UK homes and public buildings, a comrehensive ban will take years, perhaps decades, to have any effect. In the meantime, tragedy will continue to blight the lives of many parents.
We believe that the introduction of a new safety guideline for parents, which we have developed, is a solution. The guideline sets out a simple wrap-a-round test to assess all safety devices on the market. Basically, if you can wrap your hand round one of the cords hanging from a window bind, even if it isn’t a looped cord, then it could strangle a child.
In our test, devices such as cleats, tassels and tensioners have been found to be almost useless. The only device currently on the market to pass the test is WindowBlindSafe. It is the only simple and secure solution with a patented tamper-proof system of stowing and locking blind cords and chains.
A ban on cords might come tomorrow. WindowBlindSafe is the solution for today.
Window-Covering Makers Should Speed Rules, CPSC Says
Window-covering manufacturers should write tougher rules governing product designs as strangling deaths mount among small children, the chairman of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said. “A young child is likely to die this month in a window- cord incident,” Inez Tenenbaum said today at an industry meeting in Bethesda, Maryland. “A young child is likely to die every month that this standard is being worked on. No matter what the situation or circumstance is, these tragedies are preventable.” Window-blind manufacturers such as Hunter Douglas NV and retailers like J.C. Penney Co. are meeting at the agency’s Washington headquarters to map out a plan for bolstering voluntary safety rules through the American National Standards Institute, or ANSI. The group unveiled stricter requirements in September for Roman shades, which are drawn up from the bottom into a series of folds. The CPSC orchestrated one of the largest recalls in the agency’s history last December to fix more than 50 million Roman and roll-up blinds, covering all such products sold at retailers including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Pottery Barn outlets owned by Williams-Sonoma Inc. and Restoration Hardware Inc. U.S. regulators received reports of five deaths and 16 near-strangulations in Roman shades since 2006 and three deaths involving roll-up blinds since 2001, the CPSC said in December. Voluntary Industry Standard A voluntary industry standard adopted by the institute in September falls short of what’s needed, according to consumer groups involved in the rule-writing process, including Parents for Window-Blind Safety and Consumers Union. That effort focused on adding a warning label to Roman shades and not cords in all types of products. “If they choose to eliminate all the known hazards, this will be the goal we’ve been pressing for the last eight years,” said Linda Kaiser, founder of Chicago-based Parents for Window- Blind Safety, whose daughter, Cheyenne Rose, died in a window- blind cord accident in 2002. Today’s meeting kicked off an effort to write tougher rules by next October, Ralph Vasami, executive director of the New York-based Window Covering Manufacturers Association, said in an interview. The effort will apply to all kinds of window coverings and will result in tests for preventing known hazards such as cords accessible by young children, he said. ‘Looking for Solutions’ “We were on a schedule driven by the CPSC to get enhancements out as quickly as possible,” Vasami said. “We’re looking for solutions.” The industry and the CPSC have been working on the same safety problems since the 1980s, said Carol Pollack-Nelson, an independent product-safety consultant from Rockville, Maryland, who served on the ANSI window-covering committee. Companies haven’t felt the pressure to act because consumers are used to cords and don’t consider them dangerous, she said. “The challenge of this product is it’s been around for a long time,” Pollack-Nelson said. “It’s like being afraid of your walls and your floors.”
Wednesday, 7 April 2010
Likening Window Blind Cords to Child Serial Killers « AreWindowBlindsSafe
You will have heard of killers such as Mary Bell, Myra Hindley, Ian Huntley or Jon Venables, but it’ll be a bombshell when the name of the latest person to contribute to a child’s death is revealed. It could be you.
You’ve probably read reams about Victoria Climbie or Carla Nicole Bone or Jasmin Beckford or Baby Peter, but it’s less likely you’ll recognise the names of Harrison Joyce or Muireann McLaughlin or Lillian Bagnall-Lambe. The glare of national publicity and public outrage has passed them by, yet their deaths were tragic, too.
Harrison was aged three, Muireann was two and Lillian just 16 months when they died.
Unlike those who were murdered, however, they didn’t die at the hands of cruel and despicable evil-doers. They died, instead, in happy family homes where their unsuspecting loved-ones never dreamed that a lethal killer was lurking unseen, waiting for an opportunity to strike.
In each case, the perpetrator was the cord of a window blind.
At first reading it may seem a little over the top to liken the death of children at the hands of murderers to that of window blind cords. But the point the article is trying to make is that children are dying because of the inherent dangers posed in the home by window blind cords. The article mentions that while the tragic deaths are reported, the incidents when the child is rescued before strangulation can occur are usually unreported and therefore may be much higher than we’ve previously thought.
In the US, legislation has been passed banning the manufacture of window blinds and shades with hanging cords due to the over 300 deaths of children since 1985. Here in the UK, however, as previously reported, the government has refused to institute any legislation on the production or fitting of window blinds, nor on the fitting of safety products to existing window blinds.
A spokesman said: “The major concern is not the banning of the cords through regulation, but the millions of blinds with looped cords that are already in consumers’ homes.
The Press and Journal picks up on this point with a great piece of logic;
That’s an interesting argument to proffer. It’s akin to saying that 2010 car safety standards cannot be introduced because of the millions of cars that are still on the roads having been built in the 1990s. It sounds to me as though no action is an easier path to take than tackling a potentially huge problem.
It is a huge problem and we believe something must be done. But first we need to unite our voices behind a campaign to raise awareness of this problem, of the lives that have been lost – and of the children who have been badly injured – due to the hanging cords of window blinds and shades.
Please register your support on our official website and on our Facebook Page.
Monday, 29 March 2010
Another Toddler Dies After Strangling on Window Blind Cord
A two-year-old Long Island boy died Saturday (2oth March 2010) after getting his neck caught in the cord of a window blind. According to local news reports, the boy was playing with another child when he became tangled in the cord. His father and medical professionals were unable to revive him.
The report continues as follows;
This sad event underscores the dangers that the cords on blinds and shades pose to young children. Last December, the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Window Covering Safety Council joined together to “recall for repair” 50 million Roman shades and roll-up blinds. Since then the CPSC has announced the recall of 400,000 more shades and blinds. And a number of major retailers have joined the recall as well.
In the past twenty years there have been 200 fatalities from blind and shade cords, says the CPSC. Other groups say the number is higher. Parents for Window Blind Safety, an advocacy group, reports that a child dies every two weeks from strangulation on corded window treatments.
Read the story here.
Currently in the United States pressure has been forced on the Government to take notice of the needless deaths of babies and toddler each year through strangulation on window blind cords. However, the result is a massive recall of the window blinds and shades, leaving families with the choice of having no blinds at all, or replacing them with expensive cordless blinds
In the UK no such policy is in place, the Government publicly stating that it’s the responsibility of parents, blind manufacturers and fitters to ensure the safety of children. While this is a matter of common sense, the reality is very different in the home, with young children demonstrating time and again how quickly they can get into serious difficultly with the cords of window blinds and shades.
Please lend your support to our campaign to have a recognised safety device brought to market and fitting in all homes, businesses, nurseries, doctor’s waiting rooms, etc, where there are window blinds and shades present.
