Preventing TV tip-over injuries - Children's National

Do you have plans to watch the Super Bowl this weekend? If so, this is an excellent time to consider the safety of your home TV setup. If you recently purchased a TV on major sale over the holiday season or want to buy a TV for the Big Game, it is a good idea to stabilize the television. By doing so, you are avoiding extremely preventable injuries your children could face, such as the TV tipping over on them. While TVs that are not securely attached to a solid surface do not automatically seem like an issue, they are a potential hazard.

TV tip-over statistics at-a-glance

• Every 3 weeks a child dies from a television tipping over.
• Each day, ten kids go to the ER because of a TV tip-over.
• Seven out of ten kids injured by TV tip-overs are ages 5 and under.

Thankfully, there is a simple one-and-done solution to prevent such an occurrence from happening. The easy solution is to mount TVs to walls. To accomplish this, you can purchase a TV wall mount. If a TV wall mount is not a good option, make sure TVs are resting on secured furniture - furniture that has an anti-tipping mechanism installed.

Other general safety tips regarding TVs

• Keep cords connected to a TV out of reach of children and pets, as they may want to grab and pull.
• Avoid placing items on top of or around a TV that children may want to play with, such as a toy or the remote control.

TV safety can easily be achieved by mounting your TV, which is a simple one-time completion task, as well as taking some extra time to think about what would catch a child's eye.

For more information on tip-overs and tips on how to safely mount your TV, visit https://www.safekids.org/tv/