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According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, over 200,000 toy-related injuries requiring emergency room treatment are sustained by children every single year.
Here’s how to identify potentially dangerous toys and what to do if your child has been injured by one.
What to Look for With Toy Safety
Choking Hazards
Toys with multiple parts and small or brittle toys that can splinter and break can lead to choking in younger children. Inspect toys to see if they could be small enough to be a choking hazard.
To mimic the size and diameter of a child’s esophagus, a choke tube for dangerous toys can be used to determine if a toy is too small for a child. A toilet paper roll can also help approximate a potential choking hazard if you don't have a choke tube.
Poorly Designed or Manufactured
As mentioned, poorly designed or manufactured toys may splinter and break, leading to choking hazards. Even soft toys, such as stuffed animals, if poorly constructed, can lead to choking or suffocation risks. Loose stuffing, water beads, or undone stitching should all be watched for carefully.
Electronic toys should receive great attention. Certain batteries can be choking hazards, and if swallowed, the batteries can prove toxic. Symptoms to be aware of with swallowed batteries are nausea, discolored stool, abdominal pain, trouble breathing, and throat irritation or pain. Some batteries are fire risks, especially lithium batteries.
What to Do After Being Injured? Contact An Attorney
After receiving medical treatment, save the dangerous toy and contact an attorney. An attorney cannot only help determine if you have a potential product liability case but they can also litigate that case.
Kline & Specter has 60 attorneyss, five of whom are also medical doctors–the most of any firm in the United States–with the experience and expertise to investigate and litigate cases of injury or death caused by defective toys.