Surge in kids falling from windows blamed partially on COVID-19 quarantines
As the weather has gotten warmer and with schools out for summer, the number of children injured falling out of windows has risen significantly.
Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital in Tacoma has seen a significant rise in the number of such falls over the past month. There have been 25 children that have been treated for falling from a window by Mary Bridge’s emergency department so far this year.
Nine of those treated were hurt in July. Mary Bridge has not had any fatalities stemming from window falls so far this year.
According to King County Public Health, almost 5,000 children across the nation are injured due to window falls every year. Most of them are between the ages of 2 and 5.
Not surprisingly, most of the falls happen in the spring and summer months, when more windows are open.
Dr. Robert Kregenow is the emergency department medical director at Mary Bridge. Kregenow said he treats child window-fall injuries as like any trauma, such as a motor vehicle collision.
“So often these things happen very quickly with nobody even realizing it happened until somebody either sees the kid from down below or somebody witnesses once they’re in the room the window is open and the child isn’t there,” said Kregenow.
Injuries are critical in nature, most frequently involving the spine, solid organs and skull, according to Mary Bridge. A solid organ is an internal organ that has a firm tissue consistency, including the heart, kidney, liver, lungs and pancreas.
While it always varies from patient to patient, the average length of a hospital stay for children who fall out of windows is between one and three days, hospital officials said.
Dr. Elizabeth Woods is the medical director at the Children’s Advocacy Center at Mary Bridge.
“My background with window falls started in Hawaii,” said Woods. “A military family that we were close to lost their 4 year old due to a fall from their military home. So that started a passion in the field of window injury prevention and I’ve worked on multiple committees in Hawaii and Washington State.”
Woods said it is not uncommon for window falls to rise during the summer, but when the coronavirus pandemic caused the shelter-at-home order, she worried about an even greater increase in window falls.
“As soon as COVID hit, I thought, ‘Oh no, we’re going to have more window falls.’ And until June, they had been relatively consistent with our numbers for both 2018 and 2019. And then in July I had five children in two weeks,” said Woods.
Woods is worried about that trend continuing into the traditional start of the school year.
“With our great weather and the additional COVID restrictions on our normal life, I do anticipate that it’ll continue to be a problem. As parents struggle with trying to work and manage kids being home, it’s likely that they’re not being supervised,” said Woods.
Woods said in the best-case scenario, some injury and abrasions do not need to be treated as extensively. But she has also seen injuries to the spleen, which if not treated, could be deadly.
In addition, Woods said for children who are under 6 years old, the head is the heaviest part of the body and most likely to hit first. So, the likelihood of head trauma is pretty high.
Even if the child does not show immediate effects of harm, parents should keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary. That is important especially for younger children, whose brains are still developing.
There is also a connection with more window falls in military housing, according to Woods. She said there are a number of factors that play into this, including that children in military families move so frequently accidents are more likely to happen because their children are not used to their home surroundings.
Doctors from Mary Bridge want parents and guardians to know that most of these falls are preventable.
“I don’t think parents are doing anything wrong. It’s just awareness of the situation and letting people know that it can happen and there are simple measures you can do to prevent it. If they know that, they’ll of course take measures to make sure their child is safe,” said Kregenow.
Tips for preventing child window falls
Limit window openings to four inches
Use window stops/guards that cannot be removed by a child but can be removed by an adult in case if an emergency
Keep furniture away from windows to discourage little climbers
Teach children to not play near windows
Keep children in rooms with windows above grass or shrubbery to soften the impact in case of a fall