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Apr 6, 2007 4:56 pm US/Eastern
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I-Team Investigation: Oven Tip Over Accidents
by Jim Osman
PHILADELPHIA (CBS 3) ―
The CBS 3 I-Team conducted a six month investigation into serious kitchen accidents that have left hundreds of children injured or dead.
Investigative Reporter Jim Osman exposes the very people who could have done more to address the problem, but didn't.
They look like children wounded in a war. Hundreds of children are so scarred. They'll never be the same again.
"Oh my god, please don't let that be my daughter," Daynetta Lashley said.
Danyetta hardly recognized her then 12-year-old daughter Dashanda when she entered a hospital room and saw a burned young girl wrapped up in bandages.
"I'm in shock even to this day for me to go back to it," Daynetta said.
It all started two years ago when Dashanda opened an oven to clean the inside of the door. The oven wasn't on, but there was a pot of boiling water on top.
The slight pressure that a 70 pound young girl used in cleaning the oven door toppled the range.
The tip over accident left Dashanda with burns to 35 percent of her body.
"I started screaming. And I was taking off my clothes and you could see some of the skin coming off my body," Dashanda recalls.
Her mother remembers the girl, in constant pain from the burns, just wanted doctors and nurses to leave her alone.
"I remember her crying. 'Please mommy, do not let them touch me any more. Please mommy, do not let them touch me.'" Daynetta said.
Attorney Dan Sciano has represented more than 100 victims of range tip overs.
"The hazard has been well known within the industry for decades," Sciano said.
In October 1985, the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers' own documents show it believed a solution to tip overs "increases cost of product significantly."
It took six years for a proposal.
In the interim, stove tip over accidents injured at least 29 children and killed seven.
In 1991, the oven industry introduced the anti-tip bracket intended to secure ovens by attaching them to walls.
"We treat this as a subject that we solved. We have fixed it with an anti-tip device. We treated it, it's taken care of," Engineer Cleaston Runion said.
Even though he was under oath giving a deposition, Engineer Cleaston Runion, who worked for an oven manufacturer, knew that wasn't the truth.
Testifying in a Philadelphia tip over case, Runion said the problem was solved. At the very same time, he served on an industry wide task force to investigate why so many tip over accidents continued to occur.
The anti-tip solution simply was not working.
In most cases, the brackets weren't being properly installed or installed at all.
And the industries records showed only 5-10 percent of homes had the brackets.
But the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, in a document, said at the time it was "Seeing a high percentage of usage of the devices."
Engineer Ed Stykes, who worked for an oven manufacturer, knew children were still being hurt or killed.
He arranged a meeting with higher ups to sound an alarm at his company.
"The meeting fell flat. Nobody wanted to do anything," Stykes said while under oath in a video deposition for a tip over case.
"They were too busy with other work and that's how the meeting concluded," Stykes said.
And it wasn't until years later he learned company executives intentionally kept files from him of even more tip over cases: more than he could ever imagine.
"I may have pursued it more vigorously, may have gone after management to say we may have to do something more, if I would have seen these documents," Stykes said.
The tipping problem could be fixed today. Critics contend the solution needs to be built into the oven.
Like one oven door, it collapses if too much pressure is applied.
"Instead of the range tipping, it yields before the range tips over," Sciano said.
Again, manufacturing costs are a factor.
And more than 20 years after that industry group first said it would be too costly to prevent tip over accidents, a generation of girls like Dashanda have paid the price instead.
"She will have those scars for the rest of her life. There's no repairing," Daynetta said.
The Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers in Washington DC declined our request for an on-camera interview despite knowing all we would report. You can see their entire written statement below: Thank you for the opportunity to provide additional information for your broadcast on range tipping. As we mentioned to you in our previous communication, range manufacturers, on an individual company basis, and through AHAM, provide materials to consumers, installers and retailers highlighting the safety importance of range anti-tipping devices and requiring that these devices be installed. Companies provide this information through warnings on oven doors, in manuals and as stickers on new units including the front and back of units, where installers cannot avoid seeing them. AHAM, as the national trade association of range manufacturers also has a special section on its web site dedicated to safety information regarding range tipping.
Questions on the effectiveness of consumer education efforts are best directed to the retailers and installers of ranges. These are the individuals and businesses that can make a difference for consumer safety by installing the range anti-tipping devices. Manufacturers provide the safety device, several specific warnings and instructions about its importance but it is up to the installer and consumer to act.
You also asked whether alternate product features would be more effective in preventing range tipping. Manufacturers have provided uniform safety devices that will work not only in all new kitchen range situations, but also may be used to retro-fit an older range. The anti-tip devices currently being used by manufacturers have been found to be effective ways to secure the range when they are properly installed. Anti-tip devices are simple to install and they work. Manufacturer instructions require that the device be installed.
Kitchen ranges provide valuable functions to consumers, but like many useful items, must be treated responsibly and used only for their primary function. Manufacturers, installers and consumers all have an important role to play in safety.
1. Under AHAM policy, we address safety standards proposals only on the basis of technical merit and without regard to economics. Due in part to industry efforts, 1988 revisions to UL standards effectively require the provision of anti-tip brackets which prevent tipping provided with every new range shipped. Range tipping incidents are truly tragic because they not only frequently involve children but they almost all are preventable if installers and consumers would install the brackets which is not difficult or time consuming.
2. Industry has worked and prototyped for years a number of devices which require bracket installation before range use. All so far have suffered from one or more problems of not working well, being easily circumvented, or potentially creating its own safety problems. Work is continuing in this area.
3. Since manufacturers today only directly install a small number of new ranges we do not have data on bracket compliance. But our products are extensively labeled with bracket requirements as are our operating instructions and installation literature. And the bracket is often found in the oven cavity and cannot go unnoticed. Many building codes require bracket installation so failure to take such action may be a violation of law.
(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)