Safety

A toddler got her arm stuck in a private, condo pool drain after being entranced by the drains bubbles. The mother quickly went into action and held the toddler head above water so that she wouldn’t drown.

The girl’s mother was in tears poolside watching the rescue workers, while the father jumped in the pool fully clothed to comfort his daughter.

After rescuers pulled her hand out of the pump, the girl was taken to a park across the street on Crandon Boulevard, where a helicopter landed and airlifted her and her mother to Jackson Memorial Hospital. The girl was whisked away with a piece of the pipe still surrounding her arm.

A toddler who was swinging on a swing set was severly burned and shocked when a power line fell on him, burning his shoulder and creating exit burns and wounds out of his feet. The boy is recovering in the hospital where he will undergo extensive treatment and therapy.

That is the update Jake Marland’s parents, Jenny and Scott, released in a statement Wednesday evening.

They also said the burns damaged 29 percent of Jake’s body. Though the injuries are still life-threatening, the 2-year-old appears to be recovering, his parents said.

A 15 month old baby who took a handful of sunflowers and stuffed them in his mouth died when he choked to death on the tiny seeds. I couldn’t even imagine the guilt this poor father must feel. I do have to ask though, why was this baby playing with other children at 11:30pm at night?

CLEARWATER, FL — A 15-month old infant died Thursday night after apparently choking on sunflower seeds, according to the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office.

Detectives say Stephan Talley, 1, was visiting his father’s home at 15641 Morgan Street when the incident happened at around 11:30 pm.

An elderly man rammed his car into the front of a Walmart, hitting a young mother and her 1 year old daughter. The baby suffered head lacerations, skull fracture and broken jaw. The man was looking for a handicap parking space when he “lost control”. Apparently, the DVM refuses to revoke or with-hold drivers license from the elderly for fear of age discrimination liability. In most these cases, the elderly get their licenses handed back to them.

What a primo, grade A jerk! Too bad the guy’s too old to even care. He probably thinks he’s done nothing wrong.

Danvers - A baby girl was listed in “serious” condition by Massachusetts General Hospital Wednesday morning, after suffering critical injuries Tuesday morning when a car driven by an elderly Danvers man smashed through the front door at the Route 114 Wal-mart, hitting her and her mother.

The baby, Makayla Hayes, about 1-year-old, was taken to North Shore Children’s Hospital in Salem before transfer to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Her condition was listed as “critical” and had been upgraded to “serious” by Wednesday morning, said an MGH spokeswoman.

New research has found that over 100 deaths during the past decade can be attributed to children getting caught in pet doors, prompting the need to alert parents about the potential dangers.

A new study says that thanks to an increase in enforcement, more people are being arrested for soliciting minors online for sex, making the Internet safer than it has been in years. Parents are cautioned, however, not to get complacent.

Okay, that’s sayin’ somethin’ when a groups of prisoners are more responsible guardians of a toddler than his parents!

HAGERSTOWN, Md. (AP) — A prison work crew baby-sat a 2 1/2-year-old boy who was spotted Friday running along the center lines of a rural Maryland highway, with trucks loaded with gravel rumbling by, police and correctional officials said.

The six minimum-security inmates shared their lunches with the toddler, who apparently wandered away from home, and played with him while authorities located the parents and investigated, said Correctional Officer Gary Kershner, who was overseeing the prisoners.

Hallelujah.

Maybe now - children can start bringing PB&J sandwiches to school again like God intended.

A medically supervised daily dose of peanuts may help children with peanut allergies greatly increase their tolerance to the food, according to two new studies that raise the possibility of a cure for this potentially life-threatening condition.

The findings, presented on Sunday at a meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology in Washington, suggest that a treatment for peanut allergy may be developed in two or three years, said Dr. Wesley Burks, the chief of the division of pediatric allergy and immunology at Duke University Medical Center, who helped conduct the research.

Just when you thought that baby shampoo was safe…

The author suggests the way to get around bathing in formaldehyde (ewww), to buy products that say they’re organic or to pick ones with the least amount of ingredients. (Note to self.)

Malkan and her co-authors tested 48 bubble baths, shampoos and other baby and children’s products for dioxane and 28 of those products for formaldehyde.

Among their findings:

Almost two-thirds of the 28 products contained both chemicals, including Johnson’s Baby Shampoo and Huggies Naturally Refreshing Cucumber & Green Tea Baby Wash.
Eighty-two percent of products tested contained formaldehyde; the highest levels were found in Baby Magic Baby Lotion.
American Girl shower products had the highest levels of dioxane among products tested.

As mentioned in many previous Minor Topics headlines and news stories, co-sleeping with your baby in your bed is not safe according as determined by latest research and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

So, why do people still do it?

Health officials urge parents not to co-sleep for fear a parent may roll over a baby, or a baby may get stuck between a headboard and the wall. They urge parents that the safest place for infants is in the crib, alone with no blankets, bumpers or stuffed animals.

No word yet as to whether this was an accident or a homocide, horrible either way…

North Las Vegas police say a 3-year-old boy died after drinking liquid commercial grout cleaner at his home.

I wonder if the following sex offender is missing jail…

Court papers say Gibson saw fliers announcing a sex offender had moved into a trailer park near her home. She went to the man’s address, knocked on the door and accused him of molesting her daughters. Even thought Baldwin had not, Gibson hit him with the bat.

A 5-year-old boy riding in a car sans booster seat became entangled in the seat belt and was almost strangled to death.

The child’s mother, Yuko Harris, pulled onto the shoulder and called 911 after noticing that something was wrong in the back seat, where her son, DeAndre Harris, was sitting next to his 2-year-old brother.

DeAndre had no pulse when a Maryland State Police trooper arrived. The trooper had to use a knife to cut away the seat belt.

The trooper started CPR, and firefighters and paramedics continued the effort until DeAndre’s heart resumed beating in the ambulance taking him to Laurel Hospital.

Safety experts have conducted a new study that shows obese children are more likely to be hurt in a car accident than their skinnier counterparts.

Keshia M. Pollack of the Bloomberg School’s Center for Injury Research and Policy and her colleagues studied 3,232 children ages 9 to 15 who were involved in 2,873 crashes. They restricted the study to children over 5 feet tall, so that none were using booster seats; 96% were wearing seat belts; and 34% were overweight or obese.

Overall, 1.78% of children sustained a serious injury, with the incidence ranging from 1.2% for underweight children to 2.06% for overweight ones. Although the obese and overweight children were slightly more likely to be injured, the difference was not statistically significant. But when researchers broke down the data by parts of the body, overweight children were 2.64 times more likely to suffer a serious injury to arms and legs.

Wildlife officers in Coulee Dam, Washington are on the lookout for a cougar that attacked an 11-year-old boy as he and friends were playing in the yard.

Fish and Wildlife Dept. Capt. Chris Anderson says the cat bounded out of nearby brush Tuesday evening, bowled over the boy and scratched him on the head. He suffered two or three cuts on his scalp.

Anderson says it appears the 100-pound cat may have been playing with the boy because if the predator saw him as prey his injuries would have been worse.

Anderson says wildlife agents hunted all night for the cat. A local police officer took a long-range shot and missed.