Excerpt from: Consumer Federation of America (click for full article)
Consumer Federation of America (CFA), the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care (Consumer Voice), bed rail activist Gloria Black, and 60 other organizationsi filed a petition with the U.S Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) requesting a ban of adult portable bed rails or mandatory standards if a ban is not accepted. The groups are also asking CPSC to recall dangerous bed rails and refund consumers. For the purpose of the petition, portable bed rails are considered to be those that are sold and marketed directly to the public, and intended to be used with a home-style bed. This would include those marketed on the Internet, in department stores and other retail outlets, directly by manufacturers, and also in medical supply stores.
CPSC has been aware of deaths and injuries involving bed rails since 1985. In an October 11, 2012 report from CPSC, “Adult Portable Bed Rail-Related Deaths, Injuries, and Potential Injuries: January 2003 to September 2012,” CPSC documented that in that nine year period there were an estimated 36,900 visits to hospital emergency wards due to incidents related to both portable and non-portable bed rails. CPSC also reported 155 portable bed rail deaths for that same time period. These statistics represent only a fraction of the actual number of alleged bed rail related deaths. According to CPSC’s 2012 report, these deaths and injuries most commonly occur when the victim is “caught, stuck, wedged, or trapped between the mattress/bed and the bed rail, between bed rail bars, between a commode and rail, between the floor and rail, or between the headboard and rail.”
Comments