New WINDOW BLIND SAFETY CAMPAIGN FOR 2011
One couple's ingenuity aims to prevent domestic tragedy
When a child dies in avoidable circumstances and the authorities are found be culpable in any way, a public outcry is inevitable. Furious demands for lessons to be learned and procedures to be tightened are long and loud.
Strange, then, that when six children died in tragic circumstances in Britain and Ireland in 2010, the furore was somewhat muted. Each was killed in what should have been the safety of their own homes yet few lessons have been learned and preventative procedures remain largely ineffective.
Each of these children was strangled by looped cords of window blinds. Each death was an unspeakable tragedy. Each was avoidable, too, yet the death toll from window blind cords is rising. It's a trend of which everyone associated with the window blind industry should be ashamed.
Pat and John Astley, whose home overlooks the bustling River Clyde on the west coast of Scotland, were not prepared to sit back and watch the situation worsen in the absence of legislation banning blinds with dangerous cords. They realised that even if legislation was to be passed immediately, it would be practically impossible to recall each of the estimated 250million window blinds in UK homes.
Something more needed to be done. They set out to do it.
John and Pat should be enjoying a comfortable retirement. It's part of the reward for many years of hard and back-breaking graft they put into transforming their small industrial cleaning concern into one of the most successful businesses of its kind in the UK.
When they retired from the business five years ago they might have looked forward to spending more time with their grandchildren and doing all the things that working excessive hours had denied them for decades. Today, however, they are once again driven to achieve business success. This time it's a matter of life and death, literally.
When they heard of a young girl dying while playing happily at home they were both deeply affected. The girl suddenly became entangled in the looped cord hanging from the window blinds. Instantly, it wrapped round her neck like a noose, throttling her. She died.
How could such a seemingly innocent item present in millions of UK homes suddenly become a lethal threat, they asked?
Pat said: "As a mother and grandparent of 10, I realised that unsafe window blind cords are a tragedy waiting to happen but, like most people, I was completely unaware of the scale of the problem.
"There are millions of potential death traps in homes across the UK. No wonder that children have died and others have been injured across the world."
John added: "Our journey leading to the creation of a remedy started with this stark reality and has taken us down many roads; some leading to success others to frustration.
"It took a little while to realise that, in spite of the dangers, very little had happened in terms of a safe solution."
When the Astleys researched window blind cords further they became even more alarmed. In the US, the Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates about 500 children have strangled on the cords of blinds and shades since the early 1980s, an average of about one child each month.
Legislation has since been forthcoming in the US, and in Canada and Australia, too, to ban hanging looped cords from all new blinds. No such moves have been made in the UK. In an official response to an e-petition in 2010 seeking such a ban in Britain, the Government remained unmoved.
In a statement, a spokesman said: "We understand that one or two young children die each year in the UK from blind cord strangulation. These are tragic accidents and our sympathies go to the families who have lost their children, however the Government does not believe a case has been made for the measure requested in the e-petition.
"The major concern is not the banning of the cords through regulation, but the millions of blinds with looped cords that are already in consumer's homes."
That final paragraph shook Pat and John to the core. It seemed that the British Government was admitting that the scale of the problem was just too big to tackle. The loss of some child lives was less important than the difficulty of enacting legislation, apparently. Unsurprisingly, Pat and John did not agree.
They first began taking action to develop a solution of their own five years ago. Their aims were straightforward - any safety device that solved the problem of dangling cords had to be cheap to buy, simple to fit, easy to operate and maintenance free, and it had to eradicate the problem completely.
Other solutions had been used, from simple cleats to cord shorteners, but none was the comprehensive solution they believed was essential.
As they pondered the problem the tragic deaths continued. In February 2008, two-year-old Muireann McLaughlin died at her home in Menstrie, near Stirling, after becoming entangled in a looped window blind cord. She was waving goodbye to her grandmother moments before she fell into the cord.
Muireann's father, Angus McLaughlin, described finding his daughter as a "vision from hell".
Her mother, Katie McLaughlin, said: "As with most parents we had covered locks, stair-gates - all the obvious things. When we had the blind fitted we'd gone to a well-known local company, we wanted a quality service, we wanted a made-to-measure blind. It never occurred to us it could be dangerous".
Then, early in 2010, 16-month-old Lillian Bagnall-Lambe, of Stafford, died after becoming entangled in a blind. Five days earlier, also in Staffordshire, three-year-old Harrison Joyce was killed at his home after being left alone in a room for a matter of minutes.
His parents have since launched Harrison's Law, a campaign to have looped cords on curtains and blinds banned in the UK.
In Wales, Gethin Ifor Jones died just days before his second birthday in 2009 and in Ireland, Aida Foster lost her life in March, 2010, just yards from her six-months pregnant mother in the sitting room of their home in Piltown, County Kilkenny.
"Even if a ban was to be enacted tomorrow, the problem of existing blinds remains," said John. "Another domestic disaster could happen anyhere, at any time, and the problem is that millions of parents remain completely unaware of the silent killer lurking in their homes."
It's not just in the home that problems can occur. Thousand of public buildings in Britain, from council properties to doctor's waiting rooms and from leisure centres to schools and shops, have blinds with dangling looped cords hanging from them. Any one of them is a tragedy waiting to happen.
"We estimate that there could be 250million blinds with potentially lethal cords in the UK. That's why we felt we had to take action to prevent another tragedy happening to another innocent and unknowing family," he said.
Looped window blind cords also pose a serious threat to domestic pets such as dogs and cats who are also in danger of becoming entangled in them when they jump up on windowsills and play round the house.
A quick look round any home with window blinds shows the stark reality of the problem. Looped cords can be found close to kitchen worksurfaces, hanging beside picture windows in living rooms and, perhaps most dangerous of all, hanging within reach of a child's cot in a bedroom.
"The real danger is hidden because they look so innocent. It seems unthinkable that they could kill, but they can and they do," said Pat.
Turning Pat and John's ideas into reality took them more than four years and involved a series of seven design prototypes made by a manufacturing company in Ayrshire. After extensive testing and research a production deal for the final design was signed in the Far East. WindowBlindSafe, the first practical UK product to tackle the problem, was born and is now on the market.
"WindowBlindSafe brings peace of mind to families by providing a safe and easy way to stow and lock potentially lethal window blind cords and chains," said John. "Its patented tamper-proof system of keeping blind cords and chains safely out of harm's way can prevent tragedy."
The device fits on a wall close to the blind. The hanging cord is then wound round it with an ingenious patented tamper-proof ratchet system that allows it to be operated instantly by an adult but not by a child. If any downward pressure is put on the cord the device locks preventing the loop becoming a noose.
"It is simplicity itself, but then all good ideas are basically very simple," he added.
The production WindowBlindSafe meets all the targets the Astleys set themselves when they began the design process. It's cheap to buy, simple to fit, easy to operate and maintenance free. It meets all EU safety standards and is the only CE rated safety device of its kind available. It can be fitted in minutes to any type of blind cord, regardless of age or design.
The device has been tested by parents against other safety devices, such as cleats, cord shorteners, cord winders and split-cord tassels and has proved to be the only one that offers complete protection.
John added: "The international standards that the industry is asked to follow are extremely worrying. A recent article by UK Trading Standards officers highlights standard BS EN 13120:2009 (Internal Blinds - Performance Requirements Including Safety). In that document, clause 8.2 deals specifically with the risk of strangulation."
The requirements include the attachment of a warning notice to the product and in the instructions for use. The warning recognises that young children can strangle in the loop of pull cords, chains and tapes and can wrap cords round their necks. The advice it gives, however, is simply to keep the cords out of reach.
He said: "Can you imagine a bottle full of bleach or tablets having a warning sign hanging from it and instructions stating it must be kept out of children's reach if not fitted with a child-resistant top? Would this prevent a child from opening the cap and dying from poisoning?
"Absolutely not. A standard governing the safety of bottle caps was created in 1997 and updated constantly since. The risk might be different but the danger of death is identical so why not apply the same safety standard to Window Blinds?"
"This is what the window blind industry is asked to do and the standards they must meet. This is why six children died last year. More deaths are inevitable unless something is done now. In my discussions with politicians, the industry and some of its critics, nothing is likely to happen in 2011."
In response to industry complacency and the rising toll of tragedy, John developed a simple but devastating assessment for all window blind safety devices. Called the Wrap-A-Round test, it asks parents to check if a window blind cord or chain can be wrapped around a hand. If so, the blind and the room are unsafe for children.
Determined that something must be done to cut the growing death toll, John is launching a Zero Deaths Campaign to aim for Zero Deaths caused by window blinds in 2011. It has one key element, he said.
"We are asking ask every parent to conduct the Wrap-A-Round test. If a cord or chain can be wrapped around a hand then the blind and the room are unsafe for children. Parents must fit a safety device immediately or remove the blind."
John concluded: "The Window Blind Wrap-A-Round test must become a standard practice in all UK homes, workplaces and public buildings during 2011. To achieve our goal we look to editors, programme makers, producers, politicians, the industry, property managers, safety agencies, parents and the wider public to help us meet our zero target.
"Everyone has a responsibility to act now and if everyone backs this campaign, we can halt
Pat added: "I couldn't relax knowing that mums and dads across the country risk facing the heartbreak of losing a child and might be overwhelmed by the tragedies that have devastated the lives of s many others.
"There's no need for anyone to live in blind ignorance any more. WindowBlindSafe is a simple solution to securing their child's safety."
About the Author
Campaigning grandparents John and Pat Astley were horrified by the growing UK death toll of children killed by looped window blind cords and by the complacency of the industry and authorities to tackle it. They decided to do something about it. This is the story of their invention of WindowBlindSafe, the simple solution to securing a child's safety, and of their campaign to prevent any more children dying in tragic circumstances in the supposed safety of their own homes.
