Charlie's House

If you are local to Kansas City, you may remember a night in November 2007 when the breaking news on all of the stations was the tragic death of a little boy who had died after pulling a dresser over on himself. As more details were released, we learned that the little boy was 2-year-old Charlie Horn - a triplet - and his mother worked with a friend of mine. What I didn't know until just recently, was that dresser was only 30 inches high. 30 inches! That is 9 inches shorter than my 3 year old. I had always heard about anchoring furniture to the wall, and for the big stuff, we did. Look around...how many 30 inch pieces of furniture do you have that are unsecured? Scary, huh?

I was recently at my pediatrician's office, and he sat down to talk to us about Charlie's House, a non-profit organization to raise awareness about children's safety in the home. Dr. Grossman told us that he had been Charlie's family's pediatrician, and he is now a member of the Charlie's House Board of Directors. Charlie’s House has become very active in the community, spreading the word about the importance of making your house and surrounding areas safe for your children.

By the end of 2013, the organization plans to open a safety demonstration house in the KC Metro where parents and caregivers can visit to learn how to safety-proof their homes. This is in addition to various tools they offer on their website (See ‘Charlie’s Checklist’ and ‘Charlie's Virtual House’ - a 3D virtual tour through a safety demo home). This is, of course, all dependent on donations from the community. If you are interested in supporting this cause, the information is included on the website. www.charlieshouse.org

Our house is still not as secure as it should be. I look around and think, “there is no way he could pull that (insert furniture description here) over.” Sadly, I'm sure little Charlie's parents didn't think he could be killed by a 2 foot, 6 inch dresser either.

I'm not suggesting we shelter our kids to the point that they never get to experience the fun and adventurous side of things, but rather that we make the places they experience those things as safe as they can be. After visiting the website and viewing the checklist, I see I have a lot of work to do!

www.charlieshouse.org