Refrigerators are one of the sine qua non that make our lives easier. However, this type of electronic equipment is at a scale that can cause disasters that we would never imagine. Especially when it comes to children, it is impossible not to scrutinize for their safety.
So what was the problem with refrigerators in the past, which has become a major concern for people?
Refrigerators, which were produced in the first place, were designed as a household appliance for cooling food using ice blocks.
The doors of refrigerator units, which started to become very popular in America in the early 1930s, were closed using a mechanical latch. However, this system brought with it a great disaster.
In the 1950s, in just 2 years, a total of 54 children were trapped in these domestic refrigerators and 34 of them lost their lives. The biggest reason for this was that the refrigerators of those times could not be opened from the inside.
As such, citizens were asked to remove the covers of unused refrigerators. The government did not stop there, but passed a law obliging the public to dispose of their latched refrigerators.
This law, called the refrigerator safety law, was a requirement for refrigerator doors to remain closed.
Thus, a magnetic mechanism would be used instead of a latch in all refrigerators produced after 1958 all over the world. Fortunately, with this law, all refrigerators produced in the past years were overhauled and the child mortality rate due to being stuck in the refrigerator was significantly reduced.
In fact, the main reasons for these deaths are; The reason was that the air inside the refrigerators was quite insufficient, they were designed with a door that was too heavy for children to open, and that the doors would not lock and open again, no matter how much force was applied, due to the latch mechanism used.
Undoubtedly one of the favorite games of young children, hide-and-seek was the most common cause of these cases of being stuck in the refrigerator.
In addition to the air and waterproof properties of refrigerators, these coolers also have a very strong sound insulation. Unfortunately, it is not possible for the little child, whose sole purpose is to hide from his playmate, to announce his cries for help outside due to this isolation. Thus, suffocation occurs in a very short time and death is inevitable.
The number of children who lost their lives by being stuck in the refrigerator is too high to be underestimated. For example, in 2019, two siblings aged 1, 4 and 6 and a friend died after being trapped in an unused but unplugged refrigerator in their family’s garden.
In the same year, two brothers, aged 4 and 6, died while playing hide-and-seek because they could not get out of a refrigerator designed with an automatic lock system, even if it was not used.
Although these risks have been largely avoided with the change in refrigerator designs, it will be beneficial to keep children under surveillance at all times and to take the necessary precautions.
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