The majority of children will receive gifts from parents, friends or other relatives over the course of the upcoming holiday season. Getting presents can be joyous for kids, but in some cases, the gifts can be risky. Parents in Jonesboro, Paragould, Craighead County and nearby areas should be aware of the fact that sometimes toys make it to the shelves even when the products are not safe. Checking the recall list to determine if a toy has been recalled or taken off the shelves is an important way to protect young people from getting hurt or killed because of dangerous products. Parents also need to be aware of the fact that some toys are inherently more dangerous than others.
In situations where an injury was caused by a defect in the toy, victims may be able to take legal action and recover compensation. A personal injury lawyer can assist parents in determining if they have legal recourse when kids get hurt.
Dangerous Toys Can Cause Injuries or Death to Children
The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is the federal agency in charge of helping to prevent toy-related injuries and fatalities among children. The CPSC has imposed rigorous testing standards for toys and has partnered with customs officials to make sure to keep items that have not passed testing out of the country.
A recent report on toy-related deaths and injuries by the CPSC, and the way that the data is presented, makes it seem as if the agency is going a good job. According to the report, only nine kids were killed because of dangerous toys over the course of 2013. Twenty-two percent of these children lost their lives because of riding toys. Seven of the ten children who died because of toys in 2013 were killed by asphyxiation.
Although this seems at first glance as if very few kids are being harmed, the fact is that there were 256,700 kids who were hurt badly enough by toys to go to the emergency room to get treatment. Some of these children may have experienced permanent physical or mental harm. Much more must be done to ensure that hundreds-of-thousands of kids don't have to go to the hospital each year when they are simply trying to play with a toy.
News 10 also suggests that there may be more to the story when it comes to the damages that kids are experiencing due to toys. The CPSC has reported that the number of injuries has remained relatively steady over recent decades, but this is not true when considering injuries that are caused by electronic or kick scooters. These scooters have caused as much as a 40 percent increase in child injuries over the past decade. In 1990, the injury rate was 18.9 kids out of every 10,000 and by 2011, the injury rate was 26.9 out of 10,000. Almost 200,000 children had to go to the hospital due to scooter-related injuries.
Parents need to know about this dangerous toy as well as about other high-risk playthings that kids may receive over the holidays.
If you were injured or a loved one died in an accident, a Jonesboro personal injury lawyer can fight to protect your rights. Contact the McDaniel Law Firm at 1-855-524-4744. Serving Northeast Arkansas including Jonesboro, Paragould, Craighead County, Lawrence County, Greene County, Mississippi County, Poinsett County and surrounding areas.
