So not surprised! The first thing we did when we set up our monster TV was tether it to the wall, I am absolutely terrified of that sucker falling on the kids. I don’t know the weight of it, but it is a heavy son of a bleep. I still don’t let the kids go near it, even with it tethered to the wall, I get so scared of the thought of that thing falling on them.
I also think the rise in incidences has to do with the fall of TV prices, I am sure that proportionally as one goes down, the other goes up as more and more people purchase these behemoths.
From Canada.com
The number of children in the United States injured by furniture and televisions that have fallen on them has increased 41 per cent over an 18-year period, researchers report.
“Each day in this country, 40 children are rushed to the emergency department with injuries caused by a large piece of furniture falling on them,” said Dr. Gary A. Smith, of Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. “These numbers are increasing.”
Smith and his team, who reported the findings in the journal Clinical Pediatrics, said parents should anchor large furniture, such as dressers, bookshelves, and TVs to the wall using safety straps, L-brackets, or other attachment devices.”
The researchers identified 264,200 injuries — the annual equivalent of nearly 21 cases per 100,000 children — caused by furniture and TVs. More than 90 per cent of these injuries occurred in the home.
Among children four years old and younger, more than 24 per cent had inadvertently pulled furniture onto themselves, and another 11 per cent reportedly had been climbing on the furniture when it tipped. In this age group, television tip-overs caused almost 51 per cent of the injuries, and nearly 55 per cent of the injuries were to the head and neck.
The researchers said parents and caregivers should not place items such as toys or TV remotes, or high shelves because it could tempt children to climb up on furniture to reach them.
Older children more often had injuries to the upper and lower extremities from top-heavy furniture, such as bookshelves or dressers, tipping onto them.
Since these findings only reflect furniture tip-over injuries serious enough to be treated at emergency departments, Smith’s team suggests their findings underestimate the actual number of furniture tip-over occurrences in the U.S.