Arkansas mom advocating for safer furniture after her child’s death

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KAIT) - A Marion mom is advocating for safer furniture after her two-year-old died from a furniture tip over.

A 2022 report from the Consumer Product Safety Commission says in the last 20 years, 472 children have died in furniture tip-over accidents.

KATV said Keisha is telling their story because she says there’s something important she wants every parent to know that could save a life.

Keisha Bowles is the mother to an adventurous two-year-old, Sydney Chance Bowles, who sadly became part of that grim statistic in 2012.

“The last thing she said was I love you mom. I said I love you too Chance. And maybe not even two minutes later my son came into my room and he was like the TV fell. I said ok, where’s Chance? And so his face was just distraught and so I ran into the room and I saw her underneath the dresser and apparently, the TV hit her too,” she said.

Chance was taken to the hospital, but her life could not be saved.

Keisha spoke with KATV about furniture anchor.

“We thought we were doing everything the right way and this one thing that we didn’t do, it caused us to lose a very important person in our family, so it’s been a struggle for us all,” she said. “I know I feel guilty about it all the time because I should have known, but I didn’t.”

Arkansas Children’s Injury Prevention Center Director Hope Mullins said a furniture anchor is less than $10 and takes about 10 minutes to install.

“On a furniture anchor, most of them have a similar design to this. Where you have a piece that mounts to the wall and a piece that mounts to your furniture and you can tighten it down based on the length of space you need between the wall and your piece of furniture,” Mullins said.

Tip-overs kill around 20 kids every year across the country, and according to Mullins every hour, two kids in the u-s go to the e-r from these incidents.

“In our emergency department here, when, if kids are coming in from furniture tip-overs, routinely those injuries are brain injuries, the head, face lacerations, broken limbs, arms and legs and then even some crushing on the torso,” Mullins said.

Keisha says if you think your child isn’t old enough or that it won’t happen to you, don’t wait.

Brett Horn also lost his son Charlie in a tip-over accident and joined Keisha in forming “Parents Against Tip-Overs.”

Together they fight for manufacturers to be required to pass stricter testing standards and ultimately make safer products.

Parents Against Tip-Overs has been lobbying in Washington for the passage of The Sturdy Act.

This act would raise mandatory testing standards.

They got the Consumer Product Safety Commission to raise its standards, but The Sturdy Act would cement new standards into law.

KATV said the U.S Senate recently passed The Sturdy Act and it will now head back to the House of Representatives for final approval by the end of the year.