An epidemic of shopping cart injuries spurs campaign to strap kids in.
Remember when you were a child, glaring at those warnings plastered on shopping carts about how easy it is to get hurt and thinking, what a bunch of fun-deprived fuddy-duddies?
The fuddy-duddies were right.
Every year in the United States, about 22,000 children under the age of 6 land in hospital emergency rooms after a painful encounter with a shopping cart. And 60 percent of those accidents involve injuries to the head.
It’s Karen Wiggins’ job to deal with the aftermath, in the emergency room at Miami Children’s Hospital. She wishes business wasn’t so good.
That’s why she stood on a recent day in front of Sedano’s grocery store No. 26 on the western edge of Hialeah, Fla. The supermarket was attaching fire engine-red seat belts to its fleet of shopping carts, a few ounces of prevention to cure the epidemic of injuries.
“By installing these belts, it prevents me from standing there and watching a mother say, `Why did my child get hurt?’ ” says Wiggins, trauma coordinator at Miami Children’s. “We’re trying to prevent hospital visits and hospital stays. We’re trying to keep our children happy and healthy.”
That’s certainly Karina Valdes’ goal. She came to Sedano’s to pick up a few groceries, son Sebastian tagging along.
She was among the first on this afternoon to strap her child into one of the belt-equipped carts. Safety considerations are paramount, she says, but there’s this practical aspect, too:
“My son is 2 years old and, believe me, he’s very active,” says Valdes, who lives in Miami. “I can buy with a lot more peace because I know he’s buckled in.”
Injury reports from the nation’s emergency rooms suggest that not nearly enough children are getting buckled in. That’s why a national campaign has emerged during the last year to encourage parents to use safety belts in shopping carts just as routinely as they use them in the family car.
“And look at the difference we’ve had with seat belts in cars,” says Hialeah Fire Department Lt. Luis Espinosa. “Why wouldn’t there be the same difference with shopping carts?”
It is an initiative championed by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and the National Safe Kids Campaign, a private group.
Both became alarmed as they watched shopping cart injuries balloon from 16,900 in 1985 to 22,200 in 1996. That included children who fell from carts, children who were crushed by carts.
“These are not your scrapes and bruises,” says Nychelle Fleming, spokeswoman for the Consumer Product Safety Commission, “so that right there should send a message out to parents.”
Beth Van Houtteghem got the message — screechingly — a couple of years back when she was in a discount store with her son Logan, who was 4 years old. Mom turned her back for just a second, as Logan jostled in the elevated seat of a shopping cart.
“He somehow flipped over and got his thumb caught,” says Van Houtteghem, who lives in Margate, Fla. “It crushed his finger, and his whole nail came off. He was screaming bloody murder.”
A clinic patched up Logan, but as the cart hurtled to the ground, it was a powerful reminder of the importance of safety belts. Too often, Van Houtteghem says, the straps she finds attached to carts are broken, or they’re not substantial enough to restrain a 4- or 5-year-old.
The accidents happen, in part, because the laws of physics do not favor small children riding in shopping carts.
Because younger children have heads disproportionately large compared to the rest of their bodies, they’re more likely to topple. Put them in a top-heavy shopping cart, and you don’t have to be Einstein to figure out what can happen if they grasp for their favorite cookies while standing in a cart.
A fall of two or three feet for a child can produce a serious head injury, a concussion or fracture, for instance.
“This isn’t necessary, this has got to be preventable,” says Heather Paul, executive director of the National Safe Kids Campaign. “You go to the grocery store to buy cereal and your kid ends up in the emergency room — this shouldn’t happen.”
But it does. And it costs plenty.
The charge for a brain scan can easily top $1,400. The cost of a shopping cart belt: $1.50 or less.
It’s a small investment for stores that could face big liability if a child is hurt.
“We felt if we didn’t do it . . . it would be unforgivable,” says Daniel Valdes, manager of the west Hialeah Sedano’s.
So his store is following the lead of larger grocers and installing the belts.
A company called Safe-Strap, in Somersworth, N.H., has been making them for 15 years. They have produced millions.
