I opened the door, and I saw his bed was empty.
And my first thought is, oh, he must be behind the door,
playing with some toys or something.
And so when I opened the door even further,
right in front of me was his dresser
that had fallen forward.
And immediately, oh, my god, it's so quiet in here.
He has to be under it.
He's under it.
Consumer Reports launched an investigation
into the stability of dressers.
We recently purchased 24 dresser models from different furniture
manufacturers, and evaluated them
based on three separate tip-over tests.
It might be surprising, but there's
no required testing for dressers before they're
sold on the market.
So we went out and looked at what kind of dressers
are in the industry, what people are buying in stores,
and what's in their home, and we tested
them to see which dressers are more stable than others.
There is a voluntary safety standards
set by ASTM International-- a standard-setting organization,
which specifies that dressers taller than 30 inches
don't tip over when an extended drawer is loaded
with 50 pounds of weight.
Yet, children continue to be seriously and fatally injured
by furniture falling onto them.
That's why CR conducted more extensive tests.
In our first test, we opened all the drawers all the way.
All 24 models passed.
In the second test, the top drawer was fully opened,
and a 50-pound weight was placed over the drawer front.
19 models passed, five failed.
For our third, and more rigorous test,
we placed them up to 60 pounds on the top drawer
to gauge how the dressers might perform,
simulating the weight of a heavier child.
We wanted to see how many dressers could actually
withstand this weight.
13 models passed, and 11 failed.
Dressers from Pottery Barn, Epoch, and Sauder,
among others, passed CR's 60-pound test.
While models from South Shore and Ameriwood,
among others, failed a 50-pound test.
Both South Shore and Ameriwood say their products meet
voluntary safety standards.
Consumer Reports feels strongly that based
on injury data and our test results,
a mandatory and more rigorous safety standard
is required to help prevent tragic tip-over accidents
like the McGee's, from happening to other families.
That's the thing about all of this--
you can't tell a dresser whether it's
going to be tipsy just by looking at it.
So there are two things that we can hope to put pressure
on the industry.
One of them is to increase the standard weight that's
used in the ASTM standard, from 50 pounds to 60 pounds.
The vast majority of tip-over accidents
happen to kids under six, and testing with a 60-pound weight
would cover more children in this age group.
The second one is increasing the range
of heights that are associated with the standard.
And so right now, the cut-off is 30 inches and below.
So we're now putting pressure to include dressers that
are 30 inches high and shorter.
Parents should be as vigilant as they can,
listen out for recalls.
We also-- Consumer Reports recommends that you anchor
your dressers to the wall.
Anchor, anchor, anchor.
I do believe the message of anchoring furniture still
needs to be shout-out there loud and proud
for everybody to know that you have to anchor
these pieces to the wall.
But in the meantime, I do believe the standard
to get true change with this issue,
and to stop these children from dying,
have to design these dressers stronger
with stronger standards.
For more information on how to anchor your furniture,
and to see our full furniture stability testing results,
go to CR.org/tipover.