6-YEAR OLD CHICAGO BOY KILLED BY GARAGE DOOR
A 6-year old Chicago boy was killed this past Saturday due to compressional asphyxiation after he was trapped under a garage door. The boy's 9-year old brother found him.
On Wednesday, the boy's family filed suit in Cook County Circuit Court, naming as defendants the boy's uncle, who owns the home where the accident occurred, the manufacturer of the garage door, and the installer of the garage door. The suit alleges that the garage door wasn't equipped with a motion sensor and that the homeowner failed to warn his relatives that it could unexpectedly close or fall.
Since 1992 the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has required garage door openers to have devices that reverse the door when it comes into contact with a person or an object. The CPSC urges upgrading your garage door if it is more than 10 years old and to replace pre-1992 garage doors that do not reverse. This strong recommendation is based on the fact that the auto-reversing feature has significantly reduced personal injury and property damage. The measure has been so successful, in fact, that in 2001 the standard was extended to include automatic security gates that are increasingly common at the entrances of apartment and condominium complexes.
The CPSC also recommends testing your garage door periodically and performing regular maintenance and repairs as needed. Be sure to check to your owner's manual or contact the opener manufacturer about specific procedures.
As an added measure, the CPSC, along with the National Safety Council (NSC), advises parent to not let children play with or use garage-door remote controls. As a further precaution, you should mount the keypad wall control out of children's reach and in a location where users can clearly see the moving door.
My deepest condolences to the family and friends of this young boy whose life was cut tragically short.
