Massachusetts attorney Thomas M. Kiley concentrates on defective product liability cases. A father whose daughter almost died from choking on a outlet cover decided to design his own cover when he reported the incident to the Consumer Product Safety Commission to get the items recalled and they refused.
In an article by Beverly Beckham in the Boston Globe, George DeCell, a stay-at-home dad from Fairfax, VA, described the accident when his daughter accidentally choked on the plastic outlet cover five years ago. The cap was like a stopper in a drain, blocking her airway. Once she stopped struggling, he was able to remove it. On that day, he swore he would change the design of the outlet cap so that other children would not choke.
DeCell wrote to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), explaining what had happened and urging the board to issue a standard for electrical outlet safety plugs similar to the ones that regulate pacifiers. Pacifiers used to choke kids, until a federal law changed the way they were made adding holes so air could get through if a child choked on it. The CPSC board rejected his request.
He then decided to design a bigger outlet safety plug, which wouldn’t fit in a child’s mouth. While standard safety outlet plugs, which are sold and used everywhere, are 1 3/8 inches , his SafetyCaps measure 2 1/4 inches wide and include air holes, the way pacifiers do. DeCell then contacted hospitals around the country to ask for their help. Over 40 hospitals have written to the CPSC requesting that they regulate safety covers so they comply with pacifier anti-choking regulations.
DeCell wrote to the CPSC a second time but the commission again rejected his request on the basis that there have been no choking reports associated with electric outlet safety caps. So DeCell is selling his design of safety caps on his own website, and in a few stores in California. He’s been endorsed by The Mommy Times and is mentioned in “The Safe Baby — Expanded and Revised” by Debra Smiley Holtzman. At last report, he was talking to representatives of Toys R Us to ask them to carry his design.
