NPR

Window Blind Cords Still Pose A Deadly Risk To Children

Nearly one child a month dies after being entangled in window blind cords, despite years of effort to reduce the toll. A new industry standard to remove most corded blinds from the market may help.
About one child a month dies from being entangled in cords from blinds and shades, a study finds. Efforts are underway to get corded blinds off the market, but many will remain in homes.

Andrea Sutton, a mom in Firestone, Colo., was trying to put her 3-year-old son Daniel down for a nap, but he wasn't having it. It was January, too cold for him to burn off much energy outside, and he was restless. She read him some books to settle him down and then left him to fall asleep.

She returned with her 4-year-old daughter a little while later to check on him. They found him hanging from the cord of the window blinds, wearing like a necklace the V-shaped strings above a wooden knob that lowers when the blinds go up.

"When my daughter and I found him, we didn't know how long he was strangling," says Sutton, who now, eight years later, lives in Berthoud, Colo. She immediately called 911 and did CPR until the paramedics arrived. "They tried to do as much as they could, but I knew he was gone," she says. "A mom just knows."

She does not know exactly what happened. The coroner said Daniel probably wanted to look out the window, and Sutton said he may have pushed his small car-shaped toddler bed slightly closer to the window to reach. The blinds had only

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from NPR

NPR6 min read
Neoliberal Economics: The Road To Freedom Or Authoritarianism?
Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz's new book argues the road to tyranny is paved not by too much, but by too little government.
NPR3 min read
'Long Island' Renders Bare The Universality Of Longing
In a heartrending follow-up to his beloved 2009 novel, Brooklyn, Colm Tóibín handles uncertainties and moral conundrums with exquisite delicacy, zigzagging through time to a devastating climax.
NPR2 min readAmerican Government
TikTok Sues Federal Government Over Free Speech; U.S. Pauses An Israel Bomb Shipment
TikTok is challenging a new law that would ban the app if it doesn't find a buyer, citing free speech supression. The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel over fears they could be used in Rafah.

Related Books & Audiobooks