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It's easy to shrug off product recalls as frivolous or over-protective. Around Washington, big brave lobbyists like to refer to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) as the "Federal Nanny."
But there's nothing funny about accidents, especially when innocent children (you know any other kind?) are involved. This story was sent to us by Dennis, a radio reporter in Ontario, who hopes it will motivate us to make sure our cedar chests and other storage lockers have child-safe locks.
BARRIE, Ontario, May 6, 2000 -- Three young children were pulled lifeless from a trunk in a Barrie home after apparently suffocating while playing hide-and-seek. Barrie Police Const. Dave McClymont confirmed there were three victims -- a girl and two boys -- two from one family and one from another, although he couldn't confirm their ages.
Their distraught parents and other grief-stricken relatives were hugging and crying at the police station where they were being interviewed and consoled early today by police and grief counselors.
A woman at a nearby convenience store said an 8-year-old boy ran into her store and said he had found the children in a trunk. He ran there to call for help about 8:30 p.m. Neighbours said the home was believed to be occupied by awoman named Annette Patrick and four children -- a 6-year-old son named Ryan, the others of high school age or older. The other two victims were described as Ryan's friends -- a five-year-old boy named Paul and three-year-old girl named Campbell -- who lived next door with their parents and three siblings aged 10 to 19.
Neighbours said Patrick had been out with her boyfriend and had left her young son in the care of a babysitter. She returned home just as emergency crews were on scene. One resident said young neighbourhood children were always playing at the home, located in a quiet, residential area with a mix of older World War II homes and newly built residences in the heart of Barrie, an hour north of Toronto.
Last night a crowd of well-wishers converged on the home located across from Emmanuel Baptist Church to console a very distraught man and woman outside. The deaths "certainly (have) had a traumatic effect on the staff here," hospital spokesman Paul Swain said, refusing further comment.
Neighbour Art Taylor, 49, saw firefighters -- the first on the scene -- bring the children's limp bodies out of the house. "I just saw bodies in their arms, small bodies. They put them in an ambulance and drove off with the lights on but no siren," Taylor said.
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