Tether Your Furniture - A Mom's Plea

Oldest and Papa - a week after the accident

It was a beautiful summer day. The sun was shining and we had just gotten back from getting E's vaccinations. We had spent the morning at the public health office and then getting groceries. When we got home, I put the kids down for a nap and was beginning to clean my main floor. I was just starting to pick up the toys, reflecting on how amazingly the morning had gone (I had 2 kids under 2 and I seamlessly did early morning vaccinations and grocery shopping so I was feeling pretty good!)

BOOM

Everything changed. That was the loudest sound I have ever heard in my life, and as soon as I heard it I knew what had happened.

I raced upstairs, screaming B's name while praying that he was okay... I remember pausing at the door prior to opening it and hoping that I wasn't about to find his body. I opened the door to find my oldest son under his 4-drawer IKEA dresser, only his diapered bottom sticking out. He wasn't crying. I picked up the dresser and scooped him up, only realizing afterward that I should have been much more careful and checked his body before I moved him. 

I took him across the hallway into my bedroom and laid him on the bed, he finally started crying. I fumbled with my phone, not knowing who to call or what to do. Do I call 911? Do I call the nurse line and ask for medical advice? I tried dialing the number to the nurse line but I was shaking so badly that it took me 3 tries. I finally got through and they told me to immediately take him to the Children's emergency room which, looking back, should have been blatantly obvious to me. I woke up E and off we went to the hospital.

The hospital is about a 15-minute drive from my house, but that was the longest 15 minutes of my life. I realized after that his tube tv that was on the top of the dresser had landed on his head, so I told the nurses and the doctor that. They diagnosed him with a moderate concussion and told me to limit his activity and screen time for 2 weeks and to follow up with his family doctor. 

It was hard to limit the activity of a 2-year-old, but I know we are so lucky. I know that we could have been tasked with planning his funeral and that would have been infinitely harder. I am grateful every day for the fact that he was okay and was not more seriously injured. Just under a month after this happened, I became friends with a mom in my area who lost her 5-year-old to the same type of accident. 

The point of this post is simple: Tether your furniture. Anything that you may think has the possibility of tipping needs to be tethered. Simple furniture tethers can be purchased anywhere that baby-proofing supplies are sold, on Amazon, or at other retailers. I don't have affiliate codes, nor am I earning anything from this other than hopefully saving someone from the nightmare of finding your child under furniture. 

- B