Are you blinds safe? primo blinds - window blind safety

What the Window Covering Industry is NOT telling consumers about safety.

Surely every parent has heard about some of the warnings on window coverings. Tie up your pull cords out of the Childs reach; make sure there is no loop in the pull cord is usually listed in MOST child proofing check lists. I followed the check list and went through it. I placed my twins in their cribs and kissed them both good night. I could hear them playing and laughing, those little stinkers. I went in the check on them and found my 12 month old baby girl hanging from part of the cord on a window blind in their bedroom. I grabbed her and called 911. I knew, I just knew by the lukewarm feeling of her body she was gone. I breathed into her lungs and prayed to GOD that she would live. The paramedics arrived and took her immediately to the hospital with my husband in the ambulance. I was left at home to be interrogated by the police. As the minutes ticked by, I kept telling them I wanted to go to be with my baby. It then dawned on me that they were interrogating me. I did not understand HOW she could have died because I had the pull cords tied up, way out of her reach and neither did the police. How could she get tangled on the other side?

Not until a few days later did I understand that a loop could be formed ANY section of the window treatment and that is how she strangled to death. After the funeral I was just devastated, I felt like such a horrible mother. I could not believe that this could possible happen to my precious sweet baby that I so dearly loved. I started researching on the internet about window blind strangulations and after a few weeks I found a mother that lost her daughter just 2 weeks before I lost my daughter. Our stories were identical. One month later I was contacted by a retired New York firefighter who had been researching window blind strangulation deaths for the past 5 years. He educated me on the Freedom of Information Act of the Consumer Product Safety Commission and taught me how to get any investigation report I needed to research these kinds of deaths. I asked for all the information the Consumer Product Safety Commission had. After reading piles and piles of reports of strangulations (over 300 since 1980), I found that at the rate these deaths occurred, they were not freak accidents, but an epidemic that was happening all over the United States. After researching these deaths, I found that children are dying every 2 weeks from window blind cords and other corded window coverings. I also found that there are 8 ways children are dying on these products and these facts are NOT being told to the public. In November 2002 my husband and I established Parents for Window Blind Safety, a grass roots non-profit organization to act as a support group and to educate parents, law enforcement, state officials, physicians, and the media on the hazards of corded window treatments and to provide a source of current statistical information.

Children have strangled on brand new faux wood window blinds, roman shades, vertical blinds, mini blinds, corded pleated shades, break away window blinds and bamboo roller shades. It’s not just the old window treatments that children are dying on, but NEW window coverings as well. Children have strangled in the loop in the pull cord, one cord wrapped around their neck, the loop above the cord joiner, the inner cord, pull cords that have the “safety” tassels attached to them but were tangled together and with window cord wind up child safety kit attached. Since losing my daughter in June 2002 our non-profit has found over 41 families who have lost their children from the cords of window covering. These are not freak accidents, it’s an epidemic.
The problem is that the industry keeps telling the public to buy these safety kits and to keep the cords out of the Childs reach. A quote from the Window Covering Safety Council, who promotes and gives out free “safety kits”, says,” Because cord-safety features are now built into window coverings, we believe parents will feel more confident about their child's safety if they replace their older window coverings with the products now available.” Parents are doing what they are told by the safety council; however what they are not told is that children are getting objects, placing them under the window coverings, reaching the cords that are tied up, and strangling to death on them.

These window coverings have “safety kits” that the industry keeps pumping out; the problem is that they are no safer than they were 10 years ago because the length of the cord has remain the same length, long enough to strangle a child even with the cords cut short. Children are dying with these “safety kits” attached. How can they be called safety kits if children can still die on them?

Let me ask you this consumer, if you knew there were 8 ways a child could strangle on window blinds and other corded window treatments AND children were dying every 2 weeks, would you have bought those “corded” window treatments for your home?

Please come to our website and get educated and take down the corded window treatments in your home. There is no reason to feel more “confident” in any product with a cord attached to it. We have safer alternatives listed on our website along with very in depth information about corded window coverings. Don’t let the window covering industry keep you in the shade on their hidden dangers.

Parents for Window Blind Safety

Linda Kaiser
Founder of Parents for Window Blind Safety