Home furniture accidents kill one Australian child and injure hundreds more each year

SHOP staff should give parents lessons to toddler-proof furniture to help prevent potentially deadly accidents, a product safety expert says.

Furniture safetyAustralia

SHOP staff should give parents lessons to toddler-proof furniture to help prevent potentially deadly accidents, a product safety expert says.

Several hundred Australian youngsters struck, trapped or crushed by toppling chest of drawers, bookcases, wardrobes and other furniture are suffering broken bones, internal organ damage or other serious harm each year.

Furniture mishaps kill an average one child aged under nine annually.

The tip-over tragedies include a Victorian two-year-old who suffocated when a chest of drawers pinned her against the foot of her bed in 2010.

How to make your home safe

SECURE tall furniture to a wall using angle braces or anchors.

DON’T put heavy items on bookcase top shelves or tempt with favourite toys atop furniture or remote controls on top of the TV.

USE wall brackets or straps to secure your TV to a wall.

DON’T place unstable furniture near where children play.

PUT locking devices on all drawers to prevent children using them as steps.

Thousands more are involved in near misses, latest research reveals. One in four parents of young kids, recently surveyed for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, had experienced a falling furniture incident.

“Kids explore by climbing and often know that things they’re not supposed to have are kept up high,” product safety consultant Gail Greatorex warned.

“They find ways to climb, using open drawers as steps or clambering up a bookcase.”

She believes retailers should play a key safety role at the point of sale by giving customers advice on how to anchor furniture to walls.

“They are also in a position to demand that suppliers provide anchoring devices and fitting directions with the furniture.

“With a few notable exceptions, this isn’t happening.”

Ms Greatorex recently visited 10 stores at a suburban homemaker centre and found just one, Ikea, supplied anchor kits with chests and bookcases.

“All the others just told me to ‘go to Bunnings’ to get tools to secure the furniture. None of them showed any understanding of the importance of anchoring,” Ms Greatorex said.

Ikea last week launched an anchor kit safety awareness campaign following the deaths of two toddlers in the United States, who were crushed by chests that had not been properly secured.

Australian Furniture Association chief executive Patrizia Torelli supported educating customers in stores, but also noted anchor units had to be correctly installed and screwed into timber, not plaster.

“There also needs to be more flexibility for renters to be allowed to fix furniture to walls,” Ms Torelli said.

Two in five parents who had bought freestanding furniture in the past two years said it came without equipment or directions to secure it, the research commissioned by the ACCC found.

Only one in five of the 650 respondents said they received furniture danger information when buying.

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Twitter: @KarenCollierHS