Boston Injury Attorney Blog

The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission is recalling all Roman-style shades and roll up blinds after reports of babies and toddlers dying from strangulation. The CPSC said the product recall affects more than 50 million Roman shades and rollup blinds, which have cords that can get caught around children's necks. 25 million Roman shades were recalled.

CPSC said 5 children have died of strangulation and 16 others have been nearly strangled since 2006 because of the Roman shades, which pose a problem because of space between the inner cord and the shade fabric. The recall affects 25 million Roman shades. Roll-up blinds have a large loop at the end of the cord that can strangle young children, the CPSC said, adding that 3 children have died from the roll-up blinds' hazard since 2000. The recall affects 27 million roll-up blinds. The commission said about 5 million Roman shades and 3 million roll-up blinds are sold each year.

CPSC said it is working with the Window Covering Safety Council, an industry trade group, to provide repair kits for Roman shades and roll-up blinds sold at Massachusetts's retailers such as Wal-Mart, JC Penney, Pottery Barn and Ace Hardware. The repair will eliminate the cord from the Roman shades and instead provide rings for consumers to install. Shade owners will have to manually lift the rings to raise the shade. The kit will provide a device for roll-up blinds that will force the cord to separate into 2 pieces if a force equal to a baby's head is applied. The CPSC said the cord cannot be eliminated from the design of the roll-up treatment because it would strip its functionality.

For a free repair kit, consumers can contact the Window Covering Safety Council at www.windowcoverings.org or 800-506-4636.

Boston residents might be interested to learn that according to a report by the 2006 National Hospital Ambulatory Medicare Survey, written for the Department of Health and Human Services, in 2006 there were 119.2 million visits to hospital emergency departments, or 40.5 visits per 100 persons, continuing a long-term rise in both indices. The rate of visits per 100 persons was 36.1 for white persons, 79.9 for black persons, and 35.3 for Hispanic persons.

Emergency Department occupancy (the count of patients who had arrived, but not yet discharged, transferred, or admitted) varied from 19,000 patients at 6
a.m. to 58,000 at 7 p.m. on an average day nationally. Though overall Emergency Department visits increased, the number of visits considered emergent or urgent (15.9 million) did not change significantly from 2005, nor did the number of patients arriving by ambulance (18.4 million). At 3.6 percent of visits, the patient had been seen in the same Emergency Department within the previous 72 hours. Median time to see a clinician was 31 minutes. Of all Emergency Department visits, 35.6 percent were for a Boston personal injury. Patients had computerized tomography or magnetic resonance imaging at 12.1 percent of visits, blood drawn at 38.8 percent, an intravenous line started at 24.0 percent, an x ray performed at 34.9 percent, and an electrocardiogram done at 17.1 percent. Patients were admitted to the hospital at 12.8 percent of Emergency Department visits in 2006. The Emergency Department was the portal of admission for 50.2 percent of all nonobstetric admissions in the United States in 2006, an increase from 36.0 percent in 1996. Patients were admitted to an intensive care unit at 1.9 percent of visits.

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