Another Toddler Seriously Hurt By A Falling TV
UPDATED 02/09/12 11:14 a.m.
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Another small child is in the hospital, after a TV fell on her in the Auburn-Gresham neighborhood.
As CBS 2's Susanna Song reports, the 2-year-old girl taken to Comer Children's Hospital at the University of Chicago in critical condition. By 11 a.m., she had been upgraded to serious condition, but remained hospitalized.
Police say the girl was trying to climb a dresser in her home in the 1300 block of West 76th Street around 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, when a 29-inch TV and a dresser fell on her.
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The girl's mother was with her son in another room when she heard the crash.
The girl's family declined to comment on camera Thursday morning,
But a neighbor who lives in the same apartment complex as the little girl who got hurt, said parents need to pay attention.
"The kids, they be out here playing. I'm trying to figure out if I know the little girl or if my daughter knows the little girl. This is sad, very sad," said neighbor Lenice Miniefield."If you're going to go buy a big TV, make sure you buy the right stuff to tie it up there tight, so that this won't happen to no more kids."
This all comes barely a day after a 1-year-old boy was killed by falling TV at his home in the Roseland neighborhood. Around 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, an older box-type TV fell on little Sean Brown at his home in the 11300 block of South Edbrooke Avenue.
Sean was later pronounced dead.
Accidents involving falling TVs have proven deadly several other times in the past year. In January, Gianna Hadjis, 4, was killed when a television fell on her head her home in University Park.
In October and November, respectively, similar accidents killed Shaniya Singleton, 3, of the Englewood neighborhood, and Karl Clermont, 6, of Arlington Heights.
On the CBS 2 Morning News Wednesday, Arvey Levinsohn of A&H Childproofers said TVs and dressers can be dangerous, no matter how sturdy they may seem.
"Even the heaviest of dressers that I've seen my clients say, 'Oh, that's too heavy to move,' you open the drawers and they almost tip over by themselves without the child," Levinsohn said.
Levinsohn says there are ways to anchor old, front-heavy monitors and furniture with snaps and studs.
"The center of gravity has changed on a dresser when a child pulls drawers out, and they try to pull the drawers out so they can get an item that mom and dad took and put up so the child doesn't play with it, and then they leave the child alone for 5 seconds, and he opens the drawers and the center of gravity is changed," he said.
All the cases have been deemed accidental, including the latest involving the 2-year-old girl.
