Bunk beds can come with a host of nightmares

Bunk beds can come with a host of nightmares

Parents can take several precautions and set rules for kids to make things safer.

mcclatchy newspapers

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — When the bunk bed Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly built in “Step Brothers” collapses on Ferrell, the audience roars.

Funny in “reel” life? Sure. But bunk bed safety is no laughing matter in our real lives.

Despite mandatory safety standards the U.S. Consumer Protect Safety Commission enacted in 2000, children and young adults continue to be injured or die in bunk bed-related incidents. Falls were the most-common injury. Others included cuts, bruises and fractures.

Since then, bunk beds — metal and wooden — continue to be recalled from lesser-known brands as well as some well-respected companies, such as Lexington, Ethan Allen, Hooker and Ashley Furniture Industries. (For a list of recalls, see cpsc.gov.)

No one we interviewed recommends eliminating bunk beds from your child’s room, but they emphasize the importance of buying those that meet the latest standards, following safety guidelines in their use and educating your kids about potential hazards.

Each year, 36,000 injuries and an untabulated number of deaths result from bunk bed accidents. Here is a sampling of Florida cases from National Injury Information Clearinghouse records.

A 14-year-old Miami boy was lying in the lower half of a bunk bed when the bottom portion of the bed fell about 6 inches to the floor and caught his arm between the frame and the mattress in July 2005. The retail store repaired the bed, but three months later, the bed fell again and caught his leg between the mattress and frame. Unlike younger victims, he escaped injury both times.

Others weren’t as lucky. A 9-year-old Miami boy’s mother became concerned when her son, who was playing alone is his bedroom, was too quiet. She found him dead, hanging from the bunk bed with an elastic band around his neck in August 2004. The boy and his brother had been using the band to play with their toys.

The same month, a 19-month-old Pensacola, Fla., girl was found dead, entangled in the ladder of the bunk bed with her head and neck caught between the rungs of the ladder.

INFANTS AT RISK

The safety issue recently was brought into the spotlight in a study conducted by The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. It was published in the June issue of Pediatrics, the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Lara B. McKenzie, co-author of the study and assistant professor at the Center of Injury Research and Policy at the hospital, said no specific event was the catalyst for the study.

“Bunk beds continue to be a common source of injury for children and adolescents,” McKenzie said in a telephone interview. “There are a lot of bunk beds that people are still using that were manufactured prior to 2000. People may have old bunk beds or self-made beds that don’t conform to the standards.”

The researchers looked at 16 years of data (1990-2005) from the National Electronic Surveillance System, which included 572,580 cases treated in U.S. hospital emergency departments. Although some fatalities are included in the data, McKenzie said they were not included in the report because this reporting system is not a good tool for measuring fatalities. Severe cases are often dead on the scene or are brought to trauma centers, not emergency rooms.

“What was interesting was we found 18- to 21-year-olds had more than double the number of injuries of the 14- to 17-year-olds,” she said. “Many of the older group probably sleep in bunks in college dorms or are in the military or in prisons.”

But the main concern is pediatric injuries, which can be severe and require hospital admission. Particularly at risk are children younger than 3, who are 40 percent more likely to sustain head injuries because they are top heavy and likely to land on their heads.

SUPERMAN CAPE

Dr. Deanna Soloway-Simon, medical director of pediatric emergency at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Hollywood, Fla., does not recommend putting children younger than 6 in bunk beds.

“There are multiple factors,” she said. “Younger children are more likely to fall. Their judgment and depth perception are not developed. And they are very impulsive. Once the stairs are there, they don’t necessarily go down the way they came up.”

The emergency room sees falls and injuries from many causes, but Soloway-Simon said bunk beds present special problems.

“Unless you are watching your kids every minute, they can climb up on the bunk bed and, in a matter of seconds, fall,” she said. “Younger kids think they can fly. They put on a Superman cape and jump. If the cape gets caught on a rail, it could be deadly. They could hang themselves.”

Dr. Rakesh Mittal, director of the pediatric emergency department at Bethesda Memorial Hospital in Boynton Beach, Fla., said he has treated three or four cases of bunk bed injuries a year in the 20 years he has been practicing in pediatrics. Typically, he has seen head injuries in smaller children and cuts and fractures of the arms and legs in older kids.

“Almost all of them were caused by kids climbing up the stairs,” he said. “If they are younger — 3 or 4 — they want to imitate an older sibling. They can slip from the ladder. The rails may not be wide or strong enough. Others may be groggy when they come down the steps, and they fall off the ladder.”

Mittal suggests placing cushions or a rubberized mat near the ladder so a child falling will land on a softer surface.

SET AGE LIMITS

Debra Smiley Holtzman, TV personality and author of “The Safe Baby and The Panic Proof Parent: Creating a Safe Lifestyle for Your Family,” said the place to start is with a good bed. That means no hand-me-downs, unless you know the bed meets the new safety standards. And no shopping at second-hand stores, where the beds could be recalled or manufactured before the new standards.

Although most experts, including the CPSC, advise that no children younger than 6 be allowed on the top bunk, she goes even further.

Younger children will always try to imitate older siblings, she said, and that will include climbing to the top bunk.

But even a safe bed can cause injuries when misused, and she emphasized that parents need to supervise their children.

“Re-enforce the rules and make sure the kids understand the severity [of the problem],” she said. “If your kids are really wild, you may think twice about having bunk beds or separating the beds if you can.”