Falling furniture can lead to TBI in young children

While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that motor vehicle crashes and traffic-related incidents result in the largest percentage of traumatic brain injury-related deaths – 31.8 percent – other incidents can also lead to a brain injury such as playing contact sports, falls, or in the instance of one Texas child, a […]

While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that motor vehicle crashes and traffic-related incidents result in the largest percentage of traumatic brain injury-related deaths – 31.8 percent – other incidents can also lead to a brain injury such as playing contact sports, falls, or in the instance of one Texas child, a 32-inch box television fell off the stand and on top of him.

According to an article by KXAN, Danielle Henchcliffe’s son, Stanley, suffered traumatic brain injury in 2013 when he put his feet in the drawer and started rocking the drawer back and forth, eventually making the TV tumble over on top of him.

A Consumer Product Safety Commission study found tipping furniture sends more than 38,000 people to the emergency room every year. Two-thirds of them are children under 5-years-old. The study also found a child dies every two weeks from being crushed by a piece of furniture.

“Henchcliffe thought Stanley was already asleep, until she and her husband heard a crashing sound come from his room,” the article reads. “He wasn’t responding and he started turning blue, she remembered. Stanley was in a coma for five days and suffered a traumatic brain injury. To this day, he still struggles with sleep issues and magnified symptoms of autism, but the seven- year-old is alive.”

Henchcliffe told KXAN she doesn’t take any chances now and bolts her son’s television to the wall where he can’t reach it. She wanted to speak out about the incident after video of a recent scare out of Utah went viral. In that video, a camera caught a dresser falling on top of a toddler and his twin brother was able to lift it off of him.

Dell Children’s Medical Center says there are precautions parents can take before an accident happens.

“What we recommend is you use some sort of tether on the back of it,” Stewart Williams, manager of the Injury Prevention Program with Dell Children’s Medical Center says in the article. “Williams says it’s a good idea to anchor your book shelves, televisions and dressers. Keeping drawers closed and latched is another preventative measure, that way children can’t climb them.”

Experts also recommend keeping heavy items on bottom shelves.