Bean Bag Chair Injury and Recall
To children, bean bag chairs are full of infinite possibilities and the idea of a bean bag chair injury occurring is far from their mind. Much like an amoeba, a bean bag chair need not conform to one shape, but rather can take the shape of almost any object it is flushed up against. As such, the bean bag chair does not have to be just a chair. Underneath a cluster of bean bag chairs awaits an enviable hiding spot for hide-and-go-seek enthusiasts. The bean bag chair can also be used as ammunition during an epic pillow fight. A kid brother who has to block his big sister’s hockey puck at point blank range would opt to use the bean bag chair as a shield. Finally, it can mold into the perfect shape for the final addition of the pillow fort. Unfortunately, kids have found another way to have fun with bean bag chairs, and this game can end in a tragedy, causing the product recall of 2.2 million bean bag.
Kids have been crawling inside the bean bags, getting trapped and injured. When the foam beads and lack of air are combined, the innocent adolescent game ends in the children’s deafening silence and somber tears had by all. Although the design standard for bean bag chairs is to have closed and disabled zippers, this standard is only voluntary. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) reported that the zippers in Ace Bayou chairs had not been disabled, allowing children to crawl inside the bean bags. Ace Bayou had two zippers: one zipper is accessed from the outside and is the outer layer of the bean bag chair.
The second zipper is directly beneath the bean bag’s cover, which led the children to what they might have thought would have been a creative hiding spot, or simply a fun place to explore. Two children who suffered a bean bag chair injury and harmed by this design were a 13-year-old-boy from McKinney, Texas, and a 3-year-old girl
The bean bag chair injury recall does not require customers to bring the product back to the store, and Ace Bayou is not giving refunds. Instead, the recall consists of Ace Bayou offering customers a free DIY fix-it-kit, which would allow them to prevent the zippers from opening, thus “disabling” the zipper. Although two children have died from the less-than-ideal zipper placement and design, this recall was not prompted by a lawsuit. In fact, the parents of the 13-year-old never even thought about suing. It seems that 20 years ago, the bean bag company had yet another potentially lethal problem with the bean bag chairs when children would choke on the beads. In both the present and past situation, all roads lead back to the zipper, which is why the voluntary protocol for the zipper to be disabled is in
Let’s hope parents follow through with the recall and use the free kit to disable those zippers, or else decide to throw out the bean bag chair altogether. There are enough dangers in this world that we have no control over, so it is nice to protect our children when we can.