Toddler survives accidental strangulation WINDOW BLIND CORDS POSE RISKS TO CHILDREN

BY CONNIE WIRTA PHOTOS BY DEREK MONTGOMERY OF DEREK MONTGOMERY PHOTOGRAPHY

Mya Amundsen is only 6, but she can plainly tell you why you should get rid of any window blind with a cord: Mya saw her little sister strangle and nearly die.

Mya and Daisy were watching television while they waited for the muffins they’d made with their grandmother to bake. Daisy climbed up the back of the couch to reach a window and began playing with the beads on a blind’s cords. The 2-year-old fashioned a necklace by wrapping the cords around her neck.

When Mya left to check on the muffins, Daisy decided to join her and jumped down from the window ledge. When Mya returned, she found her sister hanging from the cords near the ceiling, unconscious and not breathing.

“I yelled for my mom and Mimi,” Mya recalls. “My mom cut off the cord and Mimi started breathing in her mouth and saying, ‘Come back, Daisy, come back!’”

Jean McCue says she responded as an experienced registered nurse, not as a grandmother known as Mimi. “I had no thought other than ‘ABC’ from 100 years ago in training: Airway, breathing, circulation. Once I got Daisy breathing again, her heartbeat started.”

Mya, then 5, ran to get her father, Brian, who was working in a nearby raspberry patch. “She was so scared and yelled, ‘Dad, come quick. Daisy’s dead,’” he recalls. Brian rushed to the house, where he found Daisy breathing but unconscious.

The family’s 911 call brought first responders from the Wrenshall Volunteer Fire Department as well as emergency medical services from Carlton and Cloquet. “I can’t tell you the relief I felt when I saw the ambulance crew come down those steps,” Jean says.

When Daisy and her parents arrived at Essentia Health-St. Mary’s Medical Center, a team led by emergency medicine physician Casey Litchke, trauma surgeon Amina Merchant and pediatric intensive care physician Megan Browning were waiting.

“When they opened that ambulance door, there must have been 10 to 15 people suited up and waiting for us,” Brian recalled. “I thought, ‘We did it. We made it here.’”

The team worked quickly to determine the extent of Daisy’s injuries. Tests and examinations showed she’d suffered no injuries to her neck, spinal cord or other parts of her body. “Daisy was moving slightly, and moaning. Then she’d be fussy and irritable, but she wasn’t fully conscious,” Browning recalls. “She was in a grey zone, and we weren’t sure what to make of it, so we had to keep looking.”

When the brain is deprived of oxygen due to a strangulation or drowning, the injury affects the whole brain and can have broad impact, Browning explains. To help determine the extent of Daisy’s brain injury, she called on the expertise of Dr. Richard Kanoff, a pediatric neurologist, and later Dr. Carolyn Forsman, a pediatric rehabilitation specialist.

Browning ordered a magnetic resonance image (MRI) to check for a stroke, seizure or other brain injuries. Knowing Daisy would need medication if she shifted to an agitated state during the procedure, Browning accompanied her and her family. Her parents, Brian and Theary, and her grandmother knew the MRI would provide critical information and were comforted when both Browning and Daisy’s lead nurse, Kristi Prischmann, went with them.

“Kristi came out first and gave us a thumbs up,” Jean recalls. “Then Dr. Browning came out with an amazing smile and said, ‘She’s going to be fine.’ It was just like the two of them were always with us.”

When the MRI showed no damage, Browning knew the next step was to simply give Daisy time while keeping her carefully monitored in the pediatric intensive care unit. “We can’t undo the original injury, but we do as much as we can to build safety nets in our treatments so children can be as perfect as we can make them,” the physician says.

“Dr. Browning said we needed to be as patient as we can,” Brian recalls. “She’d gave us the perfect amount of information and in layman’s terms. She didn’t scare us and didn’t tell us something that wasn’t true. I think she was born for this position.”

The next morning, Daisy regained consciousness in her mother’s arms. “She said, ‘Mama, are we camping?’” Theary Amundsen recalls, explaining her daughter had taken the hospital curtains for a tent.

When Browning returned, she found Daisy alert and playing with a new doll. “I was prepared to help her parents get through another bad day but there she was, bright-eyed and appropriately unsure of me,” the physician recalls with a smile. “She was just herself.”

Forsman examined and tested Daisy. She reassured the family that the accident had not harmed any of her abilities.

Browning credits Daisy’s recovery to the quick action by her sister, mother and grandmother that got her breathing again within minutes. She describes Daisy’s brain as stunned instead of harmed by the accident.

Brian and Theary credit Jean with saving Daisy’s life. “It could have been so different,” Brian says. “You only have a matter of minutes. It’s going to take time for us to reboot.”

The family praises the care they received at St. Mary’s. Brian’s brother and his family as well as a cousin were able to visit and support them because Daisy remained in Duluth instead of being transferred to the Twin Cities. The hospital was recently verified by the American College of Surgeons as a Level II pediatric trauma center and a Level I adult trauma center.

“It’s the best care I could have ever wished for,” says Jean. “They treated our family as part of their care for Daisy, all of us were equally important. It’s care as it should be.”

After only 36 hours in the hospital, the family took Daisy home to Wrenshall. “I took her to her bedroom and I was holding her and hugging her so tight,” Brian recalls. “I told her, ‘This is your room until you’re 18.’ It was so good to be home.”— MDT

Connie Wirta is an editor and writer for Essentia. She wrote this for Moms & Dads Today.

Window blind cords pose risks to children

When you ponder child safety, you may not think about window blinds and shades.

But the Consumer Product Safety Commission ranks the common window coverings among its top five home hazards for children. The federal agency recommends removing blinds and shades with cords from homes where children live or visit.

In December, the CPSC issued a new voluntary safety standard for readymade blinds and shades to be cordless or have cords that can’t be accessed by children.

Two children a day were treated in hospital emergency departments in the U.S. for window blind-related injuries from 1990 to 2015, according to a 2017 study. Most weren’t seriously injured but one child under age 6 died each month — most from strangulation after their necks became entangled in a window blind cord.

The danger comes from inner cords, such as those found in horizontal blinds and Roman shades; operating cords used to raise and lower the blinds; and continuous loop cords, such as those found in vertical and roll-up shades. It persists in loops created after installation, when cords become knotted or tangled, or when they are tied to a stationary object in an attempt to keep them out of a child’s reach.

The study of CPSC data found the danger peaks between ages 1-4 when toddlers gain mobility and become curious about their surroundings. Most injuries occurred when a child was under a parent’s care and had been left alone for less than 10 minutes while going to sleep, playing or watching TV.

“Window blind cords are booby traps,” says Dr. Megan Browning, a pediatric intensive care specialist at Essentia Health-St. Mary’s Children’s Hospital in Duluth. Like wading pools and button batteries, the cords are hazards in plain sight that aren’t seen as dangerous by even safety-conscious adults, she explains.

Jean McCue, whose 2-year-old granddaughter got entangled in a blind cord, agrees. “It’s got me doublethinking things because I think I know safety,” says the experienced registered nurse. “But I’d seen that cord a hundred times and I never saw it as unsafe because it was so high."

The CPSC suggests replacing old blinds and shades with new cordless versions that comply with the new voluntary safety standard.

If you can’t replace a blind or shade, the agency suggests these tips:

• Move all cribs, beds, furniture and toys away from windows and window cords, preferably to another wall.

• Make sure that tasseled pull cords are as short as possible.

• Keep all window cords well out of the reach of children. Eliminate any dangling cords.

• Check that cord stops are properly installed and adjusted to limit the movement of inner lift cords.

• Continuous-loop cords on draperies and vertical blinds should be permanently anchored to the floor or wall.

INFORMATION PROVIDED BY ESSENTIA