(AOL News)-- The baby didn't look right.
On the way to bed, Linda Kaiser checked on her 1-year-old twins and found a parent's nightmare.
Her little girl Cheyenne had pulled the cord off a window shade and strangled herself.
That June night seven years ago marked the start of one mom's child-safety crusade -- a campaign that culminated Tuesday with the national recall of millions of shades and blinds similar to the one that killed Cheyenne.
Kaiser, of Elgin, Ill., was a dental assistant who stayed home to care for her twins and their older sister. Today, she runs the national grassroots advocacy organization she founded after Cheyenne's death, Parents for Window Blind Safety.
"This isn't just about my kid," she said. "It's about other kids who died."
The national recall, issued by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and the industry-supported Window Covering Safety Council, includes products from some of the largest retailers in the country: Walmart, Pottery Barn, West Elm, Big Lots and J.C. Penney, The Wall Street Journal reported.
"This recall involves millions of Roman and roll-up blinds. About 5 million Roman shades and about 3 million roll-up blinds are sold each year," the federal commission noted in a news release.
Kaiser has worked tirelessly on three fronts: spreading the word about potential window shade dangers, offering support to other parents who have suffered similar tragedies and educating the public.
For her, and parents like her who have lost a child in similar accidents, the fight isn't over. In some ways, the attention the recall brought is just the beginning.
Many parents know to tie up the pull cords used to raise and lower shades. But the cords that run along the back of the shades are easy to pull away from the fabric -- an adult can do so with a pinkie finger, Kaiser said. Since 1991, the federal agency has received reports of more than 200 children dying from window shade pull cords, five of them in the past three years from the exposed backing cords.
That's how Cheyenne died too.
Kaiser thought she had followed every safety precaution in her home. She and her husband had installed child-proof outlet covers and safely stored medications, and she had tied up the shades' pull cords. In honor of Cheyenne, Kaiser's friends created a memorial Web site. Two other parents, searching for answers in their own children's deaths, found the memorial and contacted Kaiser.
They both had children who strangled on cords within two weeks of Cheyenne's death.
"I thought, 'We can't just sit here and do nothing,'" Kaiser said.
Kaiser admits she sometimes wanted to give up. She wrote the CPSC often, with no response. She would tell others her cautionary tale, and people would look her in the eye and tell her she was a negligent mother.
"This is not about parental supervision," Kaiser said. "I don't think people understand how fast this can happen, and how fast a child can die."
As an example, the parents' group posted a public service announcement on YouTube that features a frightening home video. A mom, filming several children in what looks like her home, pans the camera and sees her 3-year-old beside a window with a cord around his neck. As she speaks to emergency workers, her son, freed from the cord, starts crying.
This week's recall was too late to save 3-year-old Brandyn, who died Sept. 11. But his father, Navy Chief Petty Officer Phillip Coppedge, credits Kaiser and her organization with supporting him and his family through their grief. He is married and has three other children, ages 21, 15 and 10.
Many mornings Brandyn would sit by the window and wave at the big kids heading to a nearby school. But he never messed with the blinds, his dad said.
In September, Brandyn's oldest brother was babysitting. He went to the bathroom, and when he returned, the boy had gotten tangled in the shade.
All the shades are gone from the house now, and Coppedge and his wife brace for a rough winter season -- Christmas without Brandyn, and then what would have been the boy's fourth birthday in January.
The family still plans on buying the toys they wanted to give to Brandyn; they'll just give them to Toys for Tots instead.
Coppedge has warned everyone he knows about the shade dangers.
"I have been in my own way taking a stance," he said. He's also working to develop a program with the Navy's Fleet and Family Support Center to speak with new parents about the shades.
Kaiser, too, plans to keep pushing. The recall doesn't include all the shades that have injured or killed children. She's not stopping until it does.
"We're not done yet," she said.
No comments:
Post a Comment