Girl, 6, killed by falling dresser, TV

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Shadow205

Shadow205

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Sunday, June 10, 2007
CANAL POINT — A 6-year-old girl died Sunday after a 27-inch televison and the dresser it was sitting on fell on top of her in her Canal Point home.
Azia K. Latimore, of 12261 Everglades Avenue, was trying to turn off the television at about 10:20 a.m., but could not reach the power switch, Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Teri Barbera said.
The little girl pulled out one of the dresser drawers and climbed into it to reach the television, causing both the television and the dresser to topple onto her.
She was flown by helicopter to St. Mary's Medical Center in West Palm Beach, where she was pronounced dead at 1:25 p.m.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2007/06/10/0610fataltv.html
 
:( This happened to my daughter when she was 11. We were blessed that she was off to the side when the tv fell off the tv stand. The stand was much too small for the tv my husband had just bought. Since then we've been very careful about placement of heavy items like that.

That poor little girl.
 
This happens very often and not just with TV's on the dresser but TV's on appropriate stands and Dressers with no TV's.

(They make a child safety item that can attach the dresser to the wall)
 
I'm glad that your daughter wasn't injured taximom. These type of accidents happen much more freguently than you would think. God bless this little angel and prayers for her family.
 
Shadow205 said:
I'm glad that your daughter wasn't injured taximom. These type of accidents happen much more freguently than you would think. God bless this little angel and prayers for her family.
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Thanks, Shadow. We were quite relieved even though the tv broke. He'd just bought the thing too! It sure put things in perspective.
 
So sad. This accident could have been prevented, but then again, most accidents are preventable.
 
Taximom said:
Thanks, Shadow. We were quite relieved even though the tv broke. He'd just bought the thing too! It sure put things in perspective.
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That is scary. Sometimes you don't realize how dangerous things are until it happens. I'm lucky in a way to be raising a child in this day and age where we are more aware of dangers. We take it overboard a bit (according to some people) but we have all the safety things that connect to dressers then mount to the wall. His TV is mounted to the wall as well.
This is something that should be talked about a lot more with doctors and hospitals.
 
I haven't bought a new tv or stand in a long time, but if I recall correctly I think there are warnings on the stands at least about proper size and stabilization techniques. Especially for earthquake prone areas.

I know, who reads the directions?! (Me!)
 
My oldest daughter who is now 4 years old had a changing dresser fall on her (like a changing table, but it has drawers). She was not hurt because the drawers were open & she landed between them, keeping the whole dreser from falling on her. She was not quite 2 at the time.
Ever since then, we do not have any tall furniture in our home that is not strapped to the wall, & when we do catch one of the kids climbing, we tell them about the heavy things that could fall off & hurt them.
 
Dena said:
That is scary. Sometimes you don't realize how dangerous things are until it happens. I'm lucky in a way to be raising a child in this day and age where we are more aware of dangers. We take it overboard a bit (according to some people) but we have all the safety things that connect to dressers then mount to the wall. His TV is mounted to the wall as well.
This is something that should be talked about a lot more with doctors and hospitals.
Click to expand...

Don't let anyone tell you you've gone overboard! Good for you for protecting your child.
 
How horrible. I made a point to buy the wall mounted tv stands and put them up so the kids couldn't reach them. They always had remotes so I didn't worry until my 8 year old couldn't fidn the remote and got a chair to change the channels. He lost his balance and pulled the tv down with the wall mount attached and it hit his head. It was a 25 incher and it made a whole in the laminate and crushed a chair in the process. Luckily he was just bumped and didn't take the full force of it or he would have been killed. It was a trip to the ER anyways and he got to see what his skull looked like.

I'm lucky that's all and I still have him.
 
Poor little angel. Prayers to her family. Same thing happened to my baby on his 2nd birthday. He was climbing up an entertainment center to get his Elmo off the tv when it toppled over, luckily he was close to the top so it threw him backwards and he only received a broken leg and some bruises.
 
teonspaleprincess said:
Poor little angel. Prayers to her family. Same thing happened to my baby on his 2nd birthday. He was climbing up an entertainment center to get his Elmo off the tv when it toppled over, luckily he was close to the top so it threw him backwards and he only received a broken leg and some bruises.
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Thank goodness he was ok.

Mammasweets, thank you for that story. We have a TV in my son's playroom which is wall mounted up high. I never thought of him climbing up to it.
 
Happend to my son when he was like 4. Had a nice bump on his head from it for a day. He pulled the whole thing down trying to change the channel. Now the kid knows how to utilize the 3 remotes that it takes to work the home theater system, TV and cable box...better than I do.
 
this almost happened to me when i was little - luckily, the TV fell on the bed, and the dresser fell on the bed leaving me space between the floor, the bed and the dresser. this poor baby.
 
At about the same age as the poor girl in the thread, my nephew tried to pull himself up on the mantle over the fireplace. Apparently, said mantle and fireplace had never been anchored to the wall: my nephew pulled the entire stone-and-marble fireplace down on his forehead.

The exact center of the fireplace hit what I believe is called my nephew's crown and the fireplace split into two parts, each of which fell on one of my nephew's sides. When an adult got to him, my nephew was wailing, but only because he thought he was in trouble; he was hardly hurt at all.

I don't know if I'm describing this clearly, but it was a miracle he wasn't killed. And we were all shook up for some time.

As a poster said above, it isn't possible to insure kids are 100% safe.
 
There was a big media focus and many stories on the television news about this in the Houston metroplex area after two children died last year v(and I think another seriously injured) from this kind of incident. They did a really good job of publicizing how common it is and how easily it can happen.

It happened to me when my daughter was about two--I was on the phone setting up her Chuck E Cheese! birthday party and I was right there when she pulled out the drawer from the supposedly safe TV stand to get a video. The tv tilted towards her.

It was horrifying. I remember the Chuck E Cheese! employee did such a good job as a surrogate 911 operator, "Ma'am, she's okay, so take a deep breath, just calm down, she's okay, it's fine."
 
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