Window Safety

The National Safety Council offers some tips in honor of National Window Safety Week:

• Windows provide a secondary means of escape from a burning home. Determine your family's emergency escape plan and practice it. Remember that children may have to rely on a window to escape in a fire. Help them learn to safely use a window under these circumstances.
• When performing spring repairs, take care to make sure that your windows are not painted or nailed shut. You must be able to open them to escape in an emergency.
• Keep your windows closed and locked when children are around. When opening windows for ventilation, open windows that children cannot reach.
• Set and enforce rules about keeping children's play away from windows or patio doors. Falling through the glass can be fatal or cause serious injury.
• Keep furniture-or anything children can climb-away from windows. Children may use such objects as a climbing aid.
• If you have young children in your home and are considering installing window guards or window fall prevention devices, be aware that the window guards you install must have a release mechanism so that they can be opened for escape in a fire emergency. Consult your local fire department or building code official to determine proper window guard placement.
• Some homes may have window guards, security bars, grilles or grates already covering their windows. Those windows are useless in an emergency if the devices on them do not have a functioning release mechanism. Time is critical when escaping a fire.
• Insect screens are designed to provide ventilation and to keep insects out. They will not prevent a child's fall.
• The degree of injury sustained from a window fall can be affected by the surface on which the victim falls. Shrubs and soft edging like wood chips or grass beneath windows may lessen the impact if a fall does occur.
• Supervision is the key to injury prevention for children.