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Topeka, Kan. (WIBW) — A danger to your children is lurking all around in your home — and it's your furniture. Toppling TV's and dressers send thousands of children to the emergency room each year.
Unfortunately, this story is too common. In 2007, a Kansas City mother's 2-year-old son died after choking to death underneath a dresser in his bedroom.
"It was scary you know, why did this happen to my baby?" asks Shawna Collins, a Topeka mother.
Shawna and her husband, Tim, say their 3-year-old son Hunter was climbing on a dresser when it toppled on him and his sister, 5-year-old Faith.
"The dresser was all the way over here where the play pen is," Shawna pointed out, "he was laying there and it was completely on top of him."
"It's scary when you see your little boy up underneath something," Tim said.
"I literally pulled him up from out the dresser and pulled him out from underneath it. Just bumps and bruises that's it, thank goodness," Shawna said.
Unfortunately, other families aren't so lucky. In 2014, 23-month-old Curren Collas died when a dresser fell on him.
Data from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission says every year, emergency rooms see an average of 38,000 tip-over injuries-that includes TV's and furniture. In a span of two years, 360 children died from tip-overs.
Experts say parents can lower the chances of this happening to their child by anchoring dressers or TV's to the wall.
"You know, save a life, save a trip to the ER. A child is a child. I don't know what I would do if I lost any of my kids," says Tim.
Experts also say increased numbers of TV set-related accidents in recent years stem, both directly and indirectly, from the popularity of big flat-screen TV's.
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