BC Children’s Hospital is encouraging parents to take extra care around windows and balconies, after multiple children have fallen and been injured this year.
With temperatures soaring across the province, doctors say open windows and doors to balconies pose a serious threat.
BC Children’s Hospital says 12 kids have been treated for falls from windows and balconies this year so far, compared to a total of 14 last year.
Dr. Meghan Gilley, an emergency department physician at BC Children’s, tells CityNews the weather is involved in the uptick.
“As our weather gets warmer, we open our windows for air circulation and breezes. And, unfortunately, that then leads to an avenue for children to fall out of them,” said Gilley.
BC Children’s says these numbers indicate a likely increase in total expected hospital visits this year for hot-weather-related injuries.
Gilley says there are simple things that parents can do to protect kids from the danger of falling.
“Moving furniture, planters, any object that a child could climb on to get access to a window, out of the way is a great first step. The next option would be to put a window guard on your window so that it can only open up to 10 centimetres. And, finally, relying on a window screen as a preventative measure is not appropriate. Screens are not meant to take the weight of a child, and so that will not stop your child from falling out of a window,” she explained.
She advises families to closely supervise their kids not only around windows and balconies, but also around bodies of water.
“So far this year, we’ve treated three children at BC Children’s Hospital for water-related injuries, drowning or near-drowning. In 2023, we saw 13 of these injuries — keeping in mind that we are only seeing a portion of water injuries that the province has, so this does not reflect everything that’s going on in our province,” said Gilley.
She says BC Children’s Hospital won’t project what the number of injuries could be by the end of the year, but it could stay low if parents take the right precautions.