Children Injured by Improperly Secured Televisions

Fort Lauderdale personal injury attorney Joseph Lipsky has had to help families overcome the serious injuries their young children suffered because a business, such as a restaurant or hotel, failed to properly securing a tabletop television to prevent it from falling. Recent studies have shown a significant increase in the number of children being injured by the failure to take a basic safety measure.

The Journal of Pediatrics recently determined that over 12,000 children were treated at emergency rooms over the past year for injuries caused by falling televisions. This represented an increase of more than 125% for such injuries over the past decade. Incredibly, studies show that a child is killed in the United States from an improperly secured television at least every month.

With the increasing prevalence of flat screened televisions, more families are placing older model large televisions onto furniture not intended to hold such televisions, such as a desk or dresser. As any parent knows, young children can easily open drawers and climb them to reach a newly placed television, causing it to tumble upon them.

As expected, the study found that children under 5 were the victims of such accidents almost two thirds of the time. Also not surprisingly, the most commonly treated injuries were to the head and neck. As a parent, Miami personal injury attorney Joseph Lipsky hopes that television manufacturers and retailers undertake a campaign to promote greater public awareness of this problem.