Window Blind Cord
Loop Strangling Risk
Mini-Blind Draw Cord Strangling Hazard
Window Blind Cord Loops Cause Strangling Deaths
In the past 30 years, hundreds of American babies and toddlers have strangled to death on mini blind cords. Accidental strangling deaths of small children occur on both outer cord loops and inner cord loops of mini blinds.
"Window blinds may have pull cords and inner cords that can form a loop and cause strangulation if children become entangled in the pull cords or the inner cords."
Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC)
Child death rates from strangling on looped window cords is very high. Research has demonstrated that window blind cords pose among the greatest strangulation threats to children three years old and younger.
Mini Blind Makers Aware of Cord Strangulation Risk
For decades, the window covering and mini blind industry has known that looped window blind cords regularly cause children to be strangled to death. For many years, the industry also has acknowledged the unreasonably dangerous and defective nature of its products due to the hidden risks of accidental strangling injury and death posed by looped window blind cords.
In 1973, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) was formed. By 1981, CPSC studies indicate that the mini blind industry knew of at least 41 documented cases in which looped mini blind cords caused children to be strangled to death.
The mini blind industry has acknowledged the unreasonably dangerous and defective nature of products. Under pressure from the CSPC, the window blind industry voluntarily engaged in two recall/retrofit programs; the first from 1994 to 1996 and the second in 2000. Despite the mini blind recall/retrofit programs, looped blind cords needlessly have claimed the lives of hundreds more children. The number of children strangled to death in looped blind cords has increased since the recall/retrofit efforts began. Both recall/retrofits efforts have failed dismally.
Despite being fully aware of the strangling hazards of corded window blinds, the blind industry has refused to remove corded blinds from the market and the number of wrongful deaths that result from accidental strangling on looped window blind cords continues to increase.
Children continue to be strangled and die as a result of the dangerously defective design of looped mini blind cords, the mini blind industry's failure to warn of the deadly risk of strangulation they pose to small children, and the industry's refusal to remove dangerously defective corded mini blinds from the market and replace them with cordless blinds, the only safe solution.