South Carolina Child Injury Lawyer Blog

As parents, the experienced legal team of Howell and Christmas, LLC, took notice of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's announcement of a voluntary recall of an infant car seat made by Britax. The announcement was made by the Commission earlier this month and is due to the product's potential for laceration and choking hazards. The Chaperone infant car seats were sold at mass and independent retailers nationwide and on the Britax website from June 2009 to October 2010 for about $230.

The cause of four children's injuries and the reason for recall is the harness chest clip, which can break and pose a laceration hazard. There have been three reported cases that cited the chest clip as being the reason for lacerations and scratches to arms and a finger. Also, due to the small size the clip is a choking hazard. There was a single report of an infant placing the clip in his mouth.

Continue reading "Recall Alert: Car Seat May Pose Threat to Your Infant" »

South Carolina child death lawyers advise state citizens and locals to demand their representatives to install the Child Death Review board in their local community. A child's death is traumatizing for the family and heartbreaking for the community. Many times these deaths could have been easily prevented. In order to make proactive changes many states and local communities have formed a Child Death Review system that will help pinpoint changes parents, guardians, and members of the community can make to prevent future child fatalities.

In 1978 a multi-agency review of unexplained child deaths began in Los Angeles, California. In 1997 there were multi-disciplinary teams in all 50 states, including the District of Columbia, that investigated children deaths. Typically these teams included a coroner, social services, law enforcement, medical representatives, child protective services, and mental health.

Today some states have expanded their multi-disciplinary teams from the original statewide team. These states have formed the teams that work within a community and then report their findings to the state multi-disciplinary team. The state team serves as a data collection team that reviews information and then suggests new legislation to state representatives and areas for law enforcement to focus on. This system has proven to work best because it is unrealistic for a state team to conduct a thorough investigation of all child deaths throughout the entire state. Local teams vary due to county population size and city population size. Sometimes one team will oversee multiple counties, as well as multiple teams may be needed for large counties.

These teams have been proven to be effective, because they can spend more time conducting a detailed investigation of the death of a child than law enforcement can. These findings are then are reviewed and transformed into precautionary tips that are released to the community. Child fatalities are typically preventable and the team's tips remind locals of easy precautions they can take that can save a child's life. If your community does not have a Child Death Review system currently in action write your local representatives and request them to look into the system.

Source: Injury Prevention Web-AInjury Prevention Policy- "Child Death Review and Injury Prevention."March 23, 2010.