Young children and household poisons should be kept away from each other. Adults usually have only themselves to blame if they themselves are injured if they have been careless when using dangerous household poisons. Young children are naturally curious, and, thus, and unfortunately for them, they are naturally careless too. Nobody can blame young children who get injured by household poisons.
Parents or adults taking care of young children need to constantly be aware that it is their responsibility to protect their children or other children in their care at all times. When adults are not protecting children in their care, they are not being responsible; they are being negligent.
The risk of young children possibly being injured by household poisons should never be ignored. Household poisons are many, and can be highly dangerous.
Poisons and dangerous chemicals found in ordinary household cleaning products, laundry detergents, and in other household products like disinfectants, mouthwash, cosmetics, hair spray, bug spray, insect and rodent poison, air freshener, button batteries, swimming pool chemicals, paint and glue may cause injuries through:
- The eyes, mouth or skin coming into contact with these products
- Being swallowed
- Being inhaled
How dangerous are household poisons to young children?
Emergency department staff in the U.S. treats over 300 children a day, and an average of two children a day die, due to poisoning from accidental medicine ingestion, medicine dosage errors (less than half the cases), and
- ingestion of household cleaning products, detergents and other dangerous household chemicals (more than half the cases).
- Poison control centers receive more than one million calls a year about children under the age of 5 years who have been accidentally poisoned.
- Large quantities of household poisons make a home environment highly dangerous for young children – most homes have considerably more than just one or two household products that contain dangerous chemicals.
- Brightly colored cleaning liquids and laundry detergents or their colorful and attractive containers easily draw young children to them. Many household poisons even smell good, possibly causing a child to think they might be tasty.
- Young children are naturally curious.
- Swallowing, inhaling, or coming into contact with caustic chemicals found in many household cleaning liquids, laundry detergents and other household products may rapidly cause mild to severe injury, even death.
When are young children more likely to be injured by household poisons?
When the dangerous household poisons:
- are being used in the same room that a child is in
- have been used in a small poorly ventilated room that a child will soon spend time in
- are within reach of a child even for just a few seconds
- can be seen by a child
- are not kept on a high and inaccessible shelf when not in use
- are not kept in a locked cabinet
- have been transferred to containers that one would usually drink or eat from
- are being carelessly handled by the adult using them
- have warning labels that have not been read by the adult using them
- are in a can that has not been protected from being exposed to high temperatures to help prevent possible explosion of the can
- have not been properly resealed in their container after some has been used
- have not been properly disposed of after expiry
- are in “empty” containers that have not been properly disposed of
- have been spilled on the floor or on an easy-to-reach surface and have not been immediately wiped up
- have been applied with items like household gloves or rags that have been left within reach of a child and are not yet cleaned or rinsed
- are in a house where there are not usually young children
Your poisoned child may be entitled to compensation
I am a child injury lawyer who has over 40 years personal injury experience, and I offer free legal consultation. I am admitted to Practice in the Florida, New York, Oregon, Washington and Tennessee Bars.
Call me now! Mark J. Leeds. Phone # (Toll-Free): (888) 446-1999.
