It happens more often that we would like.
According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (USCPSC), nearly seven times a days, a child is rushed to an emergency room for being burnt or worsened from sticking a paperclip into an electric outlet.
You’re a diligent parent, and you know that the plastic outlet caps you put in for childproofing purposes will protect your children.
But not so quickly.
Temple University conducted a study that found it took only 10 seconds to get sockets out of 100 percent children aged 2-4 years. This should be enough to scare you.
“It poses a choking hazard for small children,”Brett Brenner is the president of the non-profit Electrical Safety Foundation International(Esfi.org), an organization that promotes electrical safety in workplaces and homes. “And because plastic caps do need to be removed for the outlet to be functional, there’s the inherent safety threat of forgetting to recover the outlet when it’s no longer in use.”
It turns out that Brenner has also a problem with the less popular sliding receptacle covers. “They’re no match for the impressionable minds of children, who can learn to defeat the devices by watching their parents plug objects into them.”
What does he suggest? The same technology, also known as tamper-resistant containers, was so effective that it has been required in pediatric hospitals for more than twenty years. However, it was a secret technology that was kept until the National Electrical Code mandated its use in new homes in 2008.
TRRs look like ordinary outlets, which is a blessing for people who don’t mind plastic caps. However, they are specially designed with spring-loaded cover plates for receptacles that seal off any openings. The cover plates can be opened by applying pressure simultaneously to both sides. This allows standard plugs to contact the receptacle contact points.
“Without that simultaneous pressure,” Brenner explains, “the cover plates remain closed, preventing the insertion of foreign objects and thus protecting children from painful, traumatic electrical injuries.”
The best part is that you will pay 50 cents less for the extra safety than an ordinary electrical outlet. TRRs, however, should only be installed and maintained by licensed electricians.
However, if you go back to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s opening statistic, you will see that nearly seven children are born each day.
* 89 percent are under 6 years old.
* 50 percent are 2 to 3 years old — the highest risk group.
* Boys are most at risk, regardless of age.
This is not something that we like to think about.
