Swedish furniture retailer company, IKEA, has currently launched a safety awareness campaign for customers after two separate tragic incidents in the U.S. killed two toddlers. The company is also offering a free wall anchoring program to further avoid home accidents involving its freestanding furniture.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced Wednesday that IKEA North America has launched a repair program for 27 million chests of drawers and dressers. They are also giving wall-anchoring kits for free. According to Reuters, the announcement came after two children were crushed to death after the drawers tipped over them.
"The chests and dressers can pose a tipover hazard if not securely anchored to the wall," the statement said. While U.S. CPSC spokesman Scott Wolfson said, "They are unstable when built and used without a wall anchoring device."
The statement also added that IKEA and the U.S. consumer agency have gotten 14 reports of tipover accidents involving MALM chests, which resulted in four injuries. Since 1989, three other reports of deaths caused by tipovers involving other models of IKEA chests and dresser were also reported.
The latest tragedies were reported in 2014 when two toddlers in separate incidents were killed. The first incident occurred in February when a six-drawer MALM chest fell on a 2-year-old boy, Curren Collas, and pinned him to a bed in West Chester, Pennsylvania. The other was in June when a three-drawer MALM chest tipped over a 23-month-old child from Snohomish, Washington and trapped him.
In the repair program, almost 7 million MALM chests and 20 million other IKEA chests and dressers are involved. And as part of the safety campaign launched by the furniture giant Thursday, the wall-anchoring kits can be collected in-store or online, Daily Mail has learned.
"Product safety is the highest priority for IKEA and IKEA chests and dressers are safe when attached to the wall as directed in the assembly instructions," an IKEA spokesperson said, "The best way to help prevent furniture tip over accidents is to secure furniture to the wall. IKEA urges customers to inspect their IKEA chests of drawers and dressers to ensure that they are securely anchored to the wall."
Meanwhile, neither IKEA nor the CPSC labelled the move as a recall, FOX Business reported. However, the move to offer a product repair or replacement is technically a recall. But the consumer panel said it could not find a record of any furniture recalls this big.
In line with IKEA's safety awareness campaign, both the company and the CPSC warned that the furniture should be kept away from children unless it is anchored to a wall.
