The Nine Days are accident prone. Children are accident
prone. Homes are accident prone, that is, the scene for many
accidents that could have been avoided. All parents have
experienced the situation of a `near accident' of varying
degree. They heave a sigh of relief when it is behind them
and intone, "Shomer pesoim Hashem -- Hashem keeps a
vigil over the innocent."
And yet, accidents do happen and the experts keep on
reminding us that they could have been avoided. The public
is not aware or alert enough. We must accelerate general
awareness.
Part I
Dreadful, shocking accidents have happened to children
recently. A baby fell from a third floor window. A one-year-
old broke her collarbone after squirming herself free from a
stroller where she had been sleeping. A two- year-old had a
hand mangled, requiring amputation to the wrist, after
inserting it into an electric mixer. A three-and-a-half year
old drowned in the bathtub.
Statistic-wise, the rate of accidents involving children is
relatively high in Eretz Yisroel compared to other
countries. Most accidents involving small children take
place in the house and around it and are the prime cause for
child handicaps and mortality, says Michal Klein from
"Beterem," the National Center for Child Safety.
According to a study made by the organization, the chances
are that every second child in Israel can expect to be
involved in an accident, especially one involving falling,
drowning or swallowing a foreign object. But people tend to
be complacent and think, "Oh, it won't happen to me," and
ignore basic safety measures.
A fraction of a second -- but how many things can happen in
this short but critical span. If we are on the spot, on
vigil, much suffering can be avoided.
A fraction of a second was all it took for the baby above to
lose a hand out of curiosity. His mother left the kitchen
for a moment, and left the mixer running. Noisy, whirling,
fascinating. And the three year old from Netivot who was
playing innocently in the bathtub with her twin. The mother
goes to answer the door -- and comes back to find the child
floating, unconscious. Or the baby left sleeping in the
stroller -- carefully strapped in! The conscientious mother
checks on the child and then leaves the room. The baby wakes
up and manages to wriggle out of the carriage and fall out,
breaking her collarbone. Or the child in the playpen who
pulls himself up to the window sill and falls out to his
death -- while a sister is playing in the same room.
Just a fraction of a second. Stories that are fresh from the
past weeks. Yitzchak Kadmon, director of the Council for
Child Welfare, can't understand the Israeli mentality of "It
only happens in the papers." He recently discovered a child
left in a closed car at peak summertime heat, and quickly
summoned the police. He cannot forget the serene reaction of
the mother, "I ran to the bank for a few minutes. What's so
terrible about that?" She certainly read or heard about the
recent tragedies of children left in cars and dehydrating to
death. But these do not relate to her personally.
900,000 children are injured every year! reports
Beterem, the National Center for Child Safety and
Health, working out of Schneider's Children Hospital. Most
of the accidents take place in the home and in about 200,
the children pay with their lives.
At the age of one-two, children are helpless. Their balance
and coordination is just developing and they are vulnerable
to falls, injuries from blunt objects, swallowing foreign
objects, burns, poisoning, home- drowning. Road accidents
figure negligibly in these statistics at 1,400.
The statistics are on the rise. If in 1999 some 170,000
children reached the emergency wards, now it is up to
176,000. In the chareidi sector, there is a high percentage
of emergencies showing up on motzaei Shabbos, with
children approaching the `tower of pots' on the Shabbos
electric plate or gas range and the resulting burns and
scaldings, accidents that could have been avoided with some
basic precautions.
Every new (and old) electrical appliance in the house needs
to be studied for safety measures. Electric kettle wires
should not dangle over the counters for children to pull and
so on.
[To be continued... as a public service]
