We can only hope that children’s toys are improving and that obviously dangerous toys will stop making it onto store shelves. At least we now have vastly improved system for recalling toys and making the public aware of recalls. Toy recalls are a year-round event, but the holidays always seem to bring to mind the most accident prone toys ever made.
Sky Dancers
You have to wonder how this one made it past the drawing board. Sky Dancers were flying dolls. You insert the feet into a molded plastic base and launch them with a pull-cord. They shoot out of the launcher often in unpredictable directions. The dolls were recalled in 2000 after reports of 150 injuries including:
- Mild concussion
- Broken teeth
- Broken rib
- Facial lacerations requiring stitches
- Scratched corneas
- Incidents of temporary blindness
Mini-Hammocks
Mini-hammocks killed 12 children, caused permanent brain damage in a seven-year-old girl, and nearly killed a five-year-old boy who was resuscitated by his mother, between 1984 and 1995. The problem was a design flaw. The hammocks did not have spreader bars to keep them open, so the net was able to get twisted around children’s necks and strangle them.
Recalls of mini-hammocks started in 1995 and by August, 1996, 13 manufacturers were recalling 3 million of the deadly hammocks.
Lawn darts
Lawn darts, sometimes called Jarts, were banned by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) in 1988. The darts were about a foot long and featured a heavy, pointed metal tip. The darts were heavy and sharp enough to puncture skulls.
The CPSC banned the sale of the darts in 1988, after three children were killed, and in1997 the CPSC reissued its warning about the darts after a lawn dart pierced a seven-year-old boy’s skull causing brain injury.
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