I know everyone has heard the dangers of blind cords and children. Me too – I’ve seen TV reports, read articles, seen pictures…But I have to tell you my story to hopefully keep the message out there that safe window treatments are STILL dangerous. Because I too thought this couldn’t happen to me.

My blinds all have no loop cords with breakaway strings that are tied up very high on the wall. I thought my house was so “baby” proofed. My child is four years old – an age that I thought was past the risk for something like this. Boy was I WRONG! I have also lectured my child about the dangers of playing near the window and with the blind cords. I thought I was totally covered.

My four year old was playing in his room. The blind was closed and my cords are cut as short as they can go and still be usable and were also placed in a safety cleat. My husband called up to him to come down stairs and play because he was making dinner. I was working in the study. My son then said he was just playing in his room and he shut his door (because he was about to do something he shouldn’t). Within two minutes, he pushed his little plastic table over to the window and pulled the window open. The rest is kind of a combination of his report and what we found.

He looked terrible and has a very horrible rope burn around his neck that was swollen and sore. This part will probably scar. His face had broken blood vessels and bruises on it. But he is alive and OK! We are all traumatized by the event and feel like he cheated death or brain damage. In the ER he had to have his trachea scoped and we had to hold him down and put antibiotic ointment on his neck twice a day for two weeks. When we were in the ER we were told that this is a common accident with very serious consequences.

I am looking into what I can do with all the blinds I have in my house now. Everyone is giving me advice, most of which I had already done. I feel really bad that this happened to him and very lucky that it was only as bad as it was.

I have now learned that children die every two weeks from window blind cords. This does not include injured children or pets, which also are victims. This is a huge problem, which is being ignored. I was told I would be covered for safety with my blinds by using cleats on the side of my windows to wind the cords and the breakaway parts to the cord loops. This was totally wrong and I now have learned that no corded window blinds are safe.