Video Of Dresser Falling On Toddler A Reminder To Always Secure Furniture

Each year, dozens of American children die after an un-secured piece of furniture falls on them. You’d like to think it won’t happen to you, but video captured by one family in Utah shows just how important it is to secure topple-prone dressers and other items to prevent them from creating a potentially deadly situation.

A video captured by a baby monitor and posted on Facebook Sunday shows twin 2-year-old boys playing, and trying to climb on the drawers of a dresser (the brand is not identified) in their room when the furniture tips over trapping one of the boys underneath.

“We woke up and looked at the camera to see if they were still sleeping and saw it was down, but they were playing around, so we didn’t know if it had landed on them,” the boys’ mother tells KSL.com.

While both of the boys were playing like nothing had occurred, the parents decided to review the tape.

What they saw was terrifying: the boys were playing on the dresser, when it begins to fall on Brock. His brother, Bowdy, can then be seeing trying to lift the dresser up.

“Bowdy just came around and assess the situation thinking, ‘I needed to help my twin brother. What do I do here?’ He tried to lift it at first, then he pushed with all of his might and pushed (the dresser) off his brother,” the mom recalls. “I really believe in a twin bond. You always hear that and I believe these two have it.”

The incident, the family says, spurred them into action, immediately securing the dresser to the wall.

“We just want to spread awareness to this one accident that happened and hope it doesn’t happen to any other families,” the mother says of deciding to post the video on Facebook.

The family’s ordeal is the just latest reminder that large pieces of furniture should be secured to the wall.

In 2015, the CPSC launched the “Anchor It!” campaign to raise awareness of and prevent furniture and TV tip-overs that can seriously injure children through a series of resources including videos, how-to’s, and news stories of tip-over incidents.

According to an Aug. 2016 tip-over report [PDF] from the CPSC, from 2013 to 2015 an average of 33,100 people were treated in the emergency room for tip-over injuries involving televisions, furniture, and appliances.

Additionally, from 2000 to 2015 an estimated 489 incidents involved fatalities. Of those, 411 – or 84% — involved children ages one month to 14 years of age.