Articles Posted in Child Injuries

Whether you are a new parent, you have teenagers, or you are a grandparent, it is important to understand the risks to children at every age. The rate of injury and fatality from infants through age 17 varies. Understanding the risks can help you to be prepared and to prevent accident and injury. Parents as well as caretakers should be aware of the potential household hazards and other lurking dangers that could cause an injury, or even a fatal accident.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, accidents are the leading cause of death for all children aged 1-14. Our Boston personal injury attorneys are dedicated to raising awareness to increase child safety and to prevent accidents that result in serious injury or fatality. In addition to working to prevent injuries, we are also committed to taking legal action on behalf of families who have lost a child in a preventable accident.

The following is a list of common injuries and risks by age group:
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A third of the children who died in car crashes on U.S. roads in 2011 weren’t properly buckled in, U.S. health officials recently reported. From 2002 through 2011, the annual rate of death in car accidents for children 12 and younger fell more than 40 percent, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Thomas Frieden, MD. Med Page Today reports the recent findings were based on data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS). CDC officials looked into the accidents that involved child passengers and looked closer at restraints that were used to protect them.

“The tragic news is still with that decrease, more than 9,000 kids were killed on the road in this period,” said Frieden.

Our Boston child injury lawyers understand that thousands of children are still at risk as not enough are properly buckled in during each and every car ride. From 2002 to 2011, during the study period, officials found that more than 9,000 children died in car crashes during the period. But deaths dropped sharply, from 2.2 deaths per 100,000 people in 2002, to 1.2 deaths per 100,000 in 2011, a 43 percent decline.
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To help protect our youngest family members, officials with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) approved a new federal standard to make bedside sleepers a whole lot safer.

The standard was passed unanimously, with a 3-0 vote earlier this month.

When we talk about bedside sleepers, we’re talking about bassinet-like products that connect to adult beds. They’re the ones that can have a lower side that’s adjacent to the full-sized adult mattress. These sleepers are meant to provide infants under the age of 5 months with a safe and comfortable sleeping environment. Typically, parents stop using these devices when the child is able to push up on hands and knees.

Our Boston child injury lawyers understand the new standard is incorporating the Standard Consumer Safety Specification for Bedside Sleepers, which requires these kinds of sleepers to comply with modifications make under the 16 C.F.R. part 1218 federal standard. Also, the new standard includes new modifications to eliminate entrapment hazards from the fabric-sided enclosed opening and to help to stop consumers from improperly assembling these sleepers when materials are missing.
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High chairs are supposed to be safe products that help to keep infants from getting hurt when they are eating. Unfortunately, evidence indicates that there are as many as 9,400 infants who are injured every single year in the United States as a result of an accident in a high chair. According to Fox News, many of the injuries suffered by children in high chairs are brain injuries, which can be very serious and have lifelong affects on a child’s cognitive functioning. Studies have also indicated a significant increase in the number of high chair injuries in recent years.

Boston personal injury lawyers know that high chair injuries can happen because of defects that make it easy for kids to fall when chair restraint systems do not work. Parents need to be aware of the risk of high chair injuries and should supervise kids at all times while in high chairs and check the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s list of recalled products to ensure they are using a chair that is safe.
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In the last few years, officials with the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) have enforced more stringent guidelines for toys, requiring testing by third party, independent laboratories around the globe. They’ve been using this system to test toys for various defects, dangers and to enforce stringent lead and phthalates limits for toys.

Over the last 5 years, officials with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and with the CPSC have stopped close to 9.8 million units and about 3,000 different toys that violated various federal safety standards. While these toys were kept from store shelves and kept out of your home, there will still many more that slipped through the cracks and into the hands of consumers.

Our child injury attorneys in Boston note the CPSC still issued more than 30 toy recalls last year. Thankfully, none of these recalls included lead issues, but there were many other dangers wrapped in products marketed to children. More than 10 children were killed in toy-related accidents in 2011. Most of these fatalities were the result of using riding toys, like non-motorized scooters and tricycles. There were four who were found in swimming pools with their tricycles and another who received a fatal head injury after his tricycle toppled. Asphyxiation and aspiration were the next most common cause of toy-related deaths.
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Officials with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) released annual ratings of child booster sea models. Less than 20 of the more than 30 new models got a top rating of “Best Bet” and only one was rated as a “Good Bet”.

According to Occupational Health & Safety (OSHA), officials also reported that some children should be in these seat until they’re as old as 12.

Our Boston child injury attorneys understand that children between the ages of 4 and 8 are about 50 percent less likely to sustain injuries in the event of an auto collision when they’re properly riding in a booster seat. If more parents were to keep their children in booster seats until they’re 12-years-old, safety officials believe that fewer children would face injuries in auto accidents. According to CBS, car accidents continue to be the number one cause of death for children under the age of 13.
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Mayor Thomas M. Menino recently joined Liberty Mutual Insurance Chairman and CEO David H. Long for a ribbon cutting ceremony to unveil the City of Boston’s first universally accessible playground at the Charlestown Navy Yard. According to the City of Boston, this project will help to provide close to 25,000 square foot boardwalk with nearly 65 pieces of play equipment within a nearly 20,000 square foot rubber playground area.

This is going to be the first playground in the area that caters to both children and adults. Liberty Mutual stepped up with a $1 million donation.

Our Boston child injury attorneys understand that everyone in the community is going to benefit from this new city addition. Unfortunately, there are more than 200,000 children who land in an emergency room with injuries from public playgrounds in the U.S. each and every year. Most injuries happen when a child falls from the equipment onto the ground. Officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), report about half of playground-related injuries are severe-fractures, internal injuries, concussions, dislocations, and amputations.
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There’s going to be a new playground in town. Recently, Mayor Thomas M. Menino announced a new 200,000 square foot artificial turf field at Roberts Playground on Dunbar Street in Dorchester, according to the Official Website of the City of Boston.

This field is going to offer residents play on football, soccer, baseball, softball and cricket teams. To emphasize safety in this area, officials will also be installing new sports lighting with LED security lights, new benches, new fencing and new bleachers than can seat 400 people. It will also come with a new scoreboard, new backstops and a new perimeter walkway. This is going to a $3 million improvement project.

Our Boston child injury attorneys understand that there are about 30 million children and teens who participate in some form of organized sports each and every year. With all of this participation, we see close to 4 million related injuries annually. The most common of these injuries are strains and sprains. Among the most serious are brain injuries — which serve as the leading cause of sports-related death in children. A lot of these injuries happen as a result of falls, being struck by an object, collisions and overexertion during informal of unorganized sports activities. More than half of these injuries happen during practice. When all is said and done, about 20 percent of those participating in these sports are injured each year, and about a fourth of those injuries are considered serious, according to the Boston Children’s Hospital.
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