ST. LOUIS, MO (KTVI) – A two-year-old boy is dead after police say he got tangled in cords from window blinds.
Police say it happened around 7:45 p.m. at a home on Water in South St. Louis. Investigators say the two-year-old climbed up into the windows of his bedroom and got tangled up in a long nylon cord from the window blinds.
The two-year-old’s mother found him hanging several feet off the ground with the cord around his neck.
It’s unclear how long the child had been tangled in the cord when he was found. Police say the husband tried to perform CPR until EMS crews arrived. The little boy was pronounced dead at Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center.
The parents were not taken into custody and police are calling it a tragic accident.
In 2002, Linda Kaiser’s daughter Cheyenne died after she was strangled by a window blind in their Barnhart home. Since then, Linda started an international awareness group called Parents For Window Blind Safety.
Here’s why, even if parents take measures to shorten or secure the cords that raise and lower the blinds, there are other cords inside that are still dangerous.
That’s exactly how Cheyenne was strangled while in her crib.
The problem can be even more pronounced when babies are just beginning to stand on their own.
Linda Kaiser’s recommendation is simple, no cords on any window treatments period. That is the only way to be 100 percent safe, no cords at all.
If that’s not an option, St. Louis Children’s Hospital sells special mounting brackets that can be placed high enough that cords can be wrapped and out of their reach, but again those cords inside the blinds can be deadly as well.
Nationwide, 5 46 children have died as a result of becoming tangled in blind cords. It’s all because these window blinds can look like a new toy to curious children, but in matter of seconds the strings inside of them can become a deadly noose.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has warned for years about the dangers of cords on window blinds. From 1991 to 2000, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) received reports of 160 strangulations involving cords on window blinds: 140 strangulations involved the outer pull cords, and 20 involved the inner cords that run through the blind slats.
Window blinds sold since November 2000 have attachments on the pull cords so that the inner cords can’t form a loop if pulled by a young child. Consumers with blinds bought before November 2000 should repair them.
Read more about Window Cord Safety and accident prevention.
Order a free Window Cord Safety Kit
More Child-proofing Safety Tips
