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Some makers do it right, but children still die from unstable dressers. And there are no laws to help prevent future tragedies.

After church one Sunday afternoon in 2016, Janet McGee waited for her 22-month-old son, Ted, to wake from his afternoon nap. As family members busied themselves in their Apple Valley, Minn., home, McGee checked on Ted every 15 minutes or so. The last time she peeked in, Ted wasn’t in bed, and she noticed that the dresser had toppled over.

In an instant, the horrible reality set in. “He’s under there, he’s under there,” McGee remembers thinking. “I lifted the dresser up, and I started digging through the drawers because all of the drawers had fallen out. And there he was at the bottom. His face was purple. His eyes were half open. I screamed for my husband to come. I started CPR on him. My 11-year-old son called 911.”

Paramedics rushed Ted to the hospital, but medical staff couldn’t revive him. McGee remembers holding his hand at the hospital. “It was cold, and I knew.”



The weight of the dresser had suffocated the little boy. And though family members were within earshot, no one heard a crash because Ted’s body absorbed the impact of the falling dresser. McGee and her husband, Jeremy, assumed their tragedy was a freakish occurrence. But they soon discovered that Ted was just one of many victims of what safety regulators categorize as a “furniture tip-over,” a sometimes fatal event affecting thousands of U.S. families each year. The McGees also learned that the dresser, an Ikea Malm, had been linked to previous tip-over deaths. Ikea did not decide to recall the product until four months after Ted died. (Read our May 2018 report with new test results that show that building affordable furniture to a stronger standard can be done.)

The tip-over problem is epidemic: Someone in the U.S. is injured every 17 minutes by a furniture, television, or appliance tip-over, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. After declining for a few years, estimated tip-over injuries for children younger than 6 involving dressers and other clothing storage units increased in 2016 to 2,800 from 2,100 the year before, or by 33 percent, according to the CPSC.

Dressers and other clothing storage units account for at least 11 percent of furniture tip-over injuries, according to the CPSC. But it’s the number of tip-over deaths in the category—there were 195 reported to the CPSC between 2000 and 2016—that particularly makes it a crisis.



The vast majority of the victims are children younger than 6. Many times, they cause the tip-over by climbing on the front of a dresser or by playing inside a drawer. Sometimes they’re alone in their room, and a parent, like Janet McGee, finds them.

To protect Ted in his home, the McGees installed safety gates, covered power outlets, and latched all cabinets—but they had never heard of a furniture tip-over. “It was just this little, tiny window of time where your life changes forever,” McGee told Consumer Reports. “Instead of planning his second birthday party that was supposed to be Elmo-themed, we were planning his funeral.”

The Truth About Tip-Overs

As it stands today, the industry operates under a voluntary tip-over testing standard—which means any dresser taller than 30 inches should stay upright with 50 pounds of weight hanging from an open drawer. Because it’s voluntary, manufacturers aren’t required to conduct the testing, let alone meet the standard, to sell their dressers in the U.S. Some manufacturers meet the standard or go beyond it; others fall short.

In light of the continuing danger, Consumer Reports launched an investigation to assess the stability of dressers in the marketplace. Over the course of a year, CR analyzed thousands of incident reports obtained from the CPSC through a Freedom of Information Act request to better understand the circumstances of injuries and deaths. CR also tested 24 dressers, representing a cross-section of the market, to find which ones could pass several progressively more stringent tip-over tests. Two tests were modeled after the industry’s current voluntary standard, but CR also devised a more rigorous test using up to 60 pounds of weight, a higher threshold that more fully represents the weight range of U.S. children younger than 6. CR also tested some dressers 30 inches and shorter, a slice of the market currently not covered by the voluntary standard.

CR’s investigation concluded that the industry standard is inadequate. At the same time, a majority of the dressers CR tested passed the 60-pound test.

“Clearly, the marketplace has found that one can design a dresser at various prices that is safer and more stable,” says James Dickerson, chief scientific officer at Consumer Reports.

CR’s findings underscore that there isn’t one formula for greater stability. However, many of the dressers that passed all CR’s tests tended to be heavier, back-weighted, deeper dressers with less drawer extension. Perhaps most significantly, CR found that there’s no easy way for consumers to simply eye a dresser and tell whether it is likely to tip over. A more effective and mandatory standard would help consumers trust that dressers for sale in the U.S. would resist tipping over onto young children.

Through interviews with parents of victims and with industry represen­tatives, CR also found that the most effective prevention strategy available today, anchoring dressers to walls using brackets and straps, isn’t an easy option for families less proficient with tools or contending with brick walls. Some parents told CR that they had no idea kits for anchoring dressers even existed.

Deadly Furniture Tip-Overs: What CR's Investigation Found

Children alone in their rooms. Almost half of tip-over deaths (46 percent) happen in the bedroom, sometimes after a child has napped. The CPSC has iden­tified certain “hazard patterns,” including children climbing on open drawers.

TV hazard. CR recommends that consumers avoid placing TVs on top of dressers. The CPSC says that 53 percent of reported tip-over fatalities between 2000 and 2016 for children younger than 18 involved TVs and dressers tipping over together.

Weak tip-over standard. The industry’s voluntary standard leaves too many children at risk. Based on our investigation, CR is calling for the tip-over test weight for dressers to be increased to 60 pounds, from 50 pounds, and for dressers 30 inches tall and shorter to be included in the standard because they also can tip over. Three of the four dressers CR tested that were 30 inches or shorter failed CR’s second test.

Industry responsible. CR thinks the most effective way to prevent tip-overs is to secure dressers to walls. But we recognize that it’s not always an option for tenants or those not handy with tools. CR thinks it’s the industry's responsibility to ensure safer, more stable dressers and that safety shouldn’t rely on consumer skill at anchoring a dresser to a wall.

Some do it right. CR’s test results show that manufacturers can make dressers stable enough to meet a tougher standard because many already do.

Based on our findings, Consumers Union, the advocacy division of Consumer Reports, is calling on regulators to set a strong, mandatory safety standard, allowing regulators to enforce the rules and more easily gain industry cooperation for recalls. In the meantime, CU thinks the industry should increase the voluntary standard test weight to 60 pounds and include dressers 30 inches and shorter. (See “Where CR Stands: Calling for Tougher Tip-Over Standards,” below.) The CR investigation comes as the CPSC this year considers issuing stricter, mandatory safety standards.

“Our recommendations would lead to safer dressers for all consumers,” says William Wallace, senior policy analyst for CU. “Raising the test weight would cover more children, and lowering the minimum height would cover more dressers.”

Much more - anchoring tips, dresser ratings etc. https://www.consumerreports.org/furniture/furniture-tip-overs-hidden-hazard-in-your-home/

#Furniture #ChildDeath #Dressers #HomeHazards #Housing