Articles Posted in Injuries to Minors

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A newly published report from SafeKids, an organization which regular readers know I have long supported, takes many unsettling facts about teens and cars out of the realm of hearsay. The best way to prevent teen car-related deaths and injuries is to know how and why they occur in the first place. That makes this report essential reading for every Oregon parent.

The report summary begins with an uncomfortable figure: 2138… the number of teens killed in car crashes in 2014 (the most recent year for which full data is available). On the positive side, it notes that “from 1994 to 2013, the rate of teen drivers killed actually decreased by 61 percent” adding that this two decades of progress “demonstrates the effectiveness of prevention efforts by government, industry, the medical community and nonprofits in passing graduated licensing laws, engineering safer cars and raising public awareness about risky behaviors.”

The report goes on to state that “2014, however, saw the death rate begin to increase again and early estimates for 2015 suggest that may continue.” Its main prescription is more of the kind of education and public outreach that has been so effective over time. We have all heard the public information campaigns, but it still needs to be said, and repeated often: avoid distracted driving, don’t overload the car, don’t speed and, perhaps most importantly: always buckle up and never drink and drive.

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A recent article in The Oregonian recounts the story of a 13-year-old Gresham girl severely injured late last month while she and a friend were crossing the street on their way home from school. According to the newspaper the seventh grader and a friend were using a marked crosswalk when a 44-year-old Gresham woman “ran a red light and hit the girls” with her delivery van.

One of the girls “suffered a significant brain injury and several fractures.” The eventual extent of her recovery remains uncertain. The other child was less seriously injured and has been released from the hospital.

The newspaper reports that friends of the severely injured girl’s family have set up a crowdfunding page to help them cope with what are likely to be years of significant expenses in the wake of this Oregon reckless driving crash involving injuries to two children (The Oregonian’s story below includes a link to the GoFundMe page).

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With spring well under way and summer around the corner it is time again for me to remind readers of the importance of window safety and the crucial work done by SafeKids Oregon.

Earlier this month the country marked National Window Safety Week. As SafeKids noted at the time: “windows rank as one of the top five hidden hazards in the home, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.” The good news is that, the group notes, educational efforts do seem to be having an effect: across Oregon “the number of children falling from windows and being admitted to the trauma system (dropped) from a high of 52 children in 2010 to 26 children in 2015.”

While that progress is excellent, more still needs to be done. As SafeKids notes: “Window falls are a preventable cause of injury and death to young children” and the basic ways of stopping them are simple. Parents should remember to keep windows closed and locked when they are not in use, to make sure that children play a safe distance away from open windows and, most importantly, to “stop at 4” – meaning to ensure that open windows are limited to a four inch gap and held in place by window guards (to prevent children from opening them further). Another important tip: if a window can be opened from both the top and the bottom secure the bottom closed and open it only from the top.

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A recent article in the Salem Statesman-Journal highlighted a popular hiking area near the town of Pacific City that has become increasingly dangerous. The newspaper solicited feedback from readers about the best way to make the area around Cape Kiwanda safer.

According to the newspaper, “seven people have died in the popular Oregon coast destination… since 2009, including five during the past eight months. The tragedies have been almost entirely experienced by teenagers, with the average age of victims at 19 years. Most of the time the victims hiked up a sand dune, disregarded fencing and signs, climbed onto a hazardous sandstone bluff and fell into the ocean.”

The article notes that state and county officials are searching for new ways to deal with the problem of drowning in the area. The paper published photos of the existing signs at the Cape, which read simply “Danger: Do not go beyond this point,” and contrasted them with a sign on a different part of the trail which takes a much more forceful approach. That posting reads: “Danger!! Several fatalities have occurred in and around these waters. STAY ON THE TRAIL”

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Last Friday the Oregon Senate unanimously approved “a bill aimed at ensuring that sexual assault evidence is submitted for lab testing in a timely manner and not left untouched on police evidence shelves,” according to a report in The Oregonian. The bill is named for a teenage Northeast Portland girl who was raped and murdered across the street from her home in 2001.

Melissa’s Bill, as it is known, focuses on untested sexual assault kits because of the discovery that “sexual assault kits from at least two other young teens raped by the girl’s killer four years earlier sat on the Portland Police Bureau’s evidence shelves” and were not tested until a connection was drawn between them and the 2001 case. According to the newspaper the girl’s parents hoped that their child’s death would at least lead to a change in police procedures, and to more timely testing of rape and assault kits. When a newspaper investigation revealed that despite the passage of more than a decade little had changed Melissa’s parents went to the legislature.

As described by the paper the bill will require that, beginning next January 1, “each police agency in Oregon shall adopt written policies and procedures concerning the collection, submission for testing and retention of the kits. Under the bill police must pick up the kits within seven days after a hospital alerts them about a kit’s existence and submit them to the state crime lab for testing within 14 days of receipt. All kits must be stored for 60 years.”

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Is there any example of a hot consumer product becoming toxic quite as quickly as the hoverboard? The Oregonian reported this week that retailing giant Amazon “recently pulled the item from its marketplaces” barely three months after hoverboards were the ‘must-have’ gift of the holiday season.

The reason for the change of heart is well-known. As dangerous products go it is hard to imagine any recent consumer item whose fortunes have reversed quite so quickly. Over the course of 2015 the gyroscope-powered toys went from a rare curiosity to a pop-culture phenomenon. Then, just as sales were hitting stratospheric heights, reports – and dramatic videos – emerged of the devices spontaneously bursting into flames (this, as The Oregonian notes, is in addition to “other risks to the public as evidenced from plenty of video compilations prominently featuring people falling off of them.”).

Now, only weeks later, “the obscenely popular holiday gadget was silently and unceremoniously dropped from all Amazon’s electronics pages… the U.S. government recently declared the gadgets an “imminent hazard” and… locally, the University of Oregon banned hoverboards in January, going so far as to supply students with fireproof storage for any of the errant gadgets.”

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A story in The Oregonian this week is especially timely as the legislature considers changes to the ways in which legal recreational marijuana and its derivatives are treated in our state, and serious issues these, in turn, raise concerning injuries to children.

The newspaper recounts how an eight-year-old Klamath Falls boy became sick after eating a marijuana-infused cookie that he found on the ground. The boy’s mother told the paper that after returning from a family trip to a local quarry. “He pulled his chest and made motions that suggested he was choking. He had trouble keeping his eyes open,” the paper reports. It then quotes the mother saying “he said everything looked like a cartoon… He said he was vibrating all over.” A trip to the ER followed, along with five hours of treatment and observations. The boy is now fine.

The broader fallout from this incident may continue for some time, however, and is likely to resonate in the halls of the Oregon legislature in Salem. As The Oregonian notes, “the incident comes as Oregon public health officials and marijuana industry representatives debate the appropriate serving size for marijuana edibles.” Regulators have proposed serving size and concentration levels that are only half of what is allowed by Colorado and Washington “in part to protect novices and children who accidently eat the products.” This particular instance is a case in point: a single cookie contained two adult-size portions of marijuana’s active ingredient, a chemical compound known as THC. Many people unfamiliar with pot cookies or brownies may not be aware that unlike the ordinary versions of the same product one is not supposed to eat the entire thing.

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Last week’s announcement that OHSU’s children’s hospital has acquired a state-of-the-art MRI unit for use during operations is excellent news for Oregon families that may someday be faced with traumatic brain injuries or other injuries to children requiring sensitive surgery.

According to a recent account in The Oregonian the $2 million machine and its accompanying $19 million surgical suite are significant because this type of MRI can be used during operations in the operating theater itself, in contrast to traditional MRI units which are housed separately and can only be used before or after surgery. “The MRI travels overhead on rails and then retracts after the pictures are taken, allowing surgeons to see what’s going on while they’re operating,” the paper reports. The machine is scheduled to go into service next month.

This is significant because, as OHSU’s head of neurological surgery tells the paper: “Brain surgery often succeeds or fails by a millimeter, but during surgery the brain can shift by 10 times that much.”

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Following up my blog last month about the scandal and abuses at the Give Us This Day foster care center I am pleased to report that the Oregon legislature is making progress to address the important issue of injuries to children in Oregon’s foster care system.

As reported recently by The Oregonian, the Senate’s Human Services Committee has unanimously approved SB 1515 under which “Oregon’s foster care officials would have to produce public reports listing confirmed findings of abuse and neglect every three months.” The drive for this legislation was spurred by the scandal at the now-shuttered Give Us This Day facility which, the newspaper writes, is accused of misusing more than $2 million of public funds even as it “tolerated more than a decade of child abuse.”

The key thing to remember is that this scandal is not about one particular center, but, rather, about the entire way foster care is handled by the government here in Oregon and how much insight the public ought to be able to have into both the state’s actions and the providers with whom it works.

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A lawsuit alleging sexual abuse at a state youth correctional facility is calling attention to the responsibility Oregon and other states have to protect young people placed in their care. According to a recent article in The Oregonian a man in his early 40s has filed a suit in Marion County court alleging that “as a teenager in 1991 he was repeatedly coaxed into a laundry room and a bathroom and then sexually abused by two female staff members at MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility in Woodburn.”

This case caught my eye because it is a powerful reminder that injuries to, and sexual abuse of, children can and should be addressed by our justice system even if a significant amount of time has passed. According to the paper the victim, identified in the suit only as “John Doe” had not “reported the MacLaren employees to police or others, the suit says, because he didn’t see the behavior for what it was.” No person who has suffered in this way should be denied justice solely because they were too afraid to come forward at the time the offense was committed. Therefore it is heartening to see this case proceeding despite the passage of nearly 25 years.

Even more importantly, “the suit states that sexual abuse at the youth prison in the 1990s wasn’t just isolated to Doe. The suit claims that the two women abused at least three other boys – and that one of the women ended up marrying a youth offender after the two had a sexual relationship at MacLaren. The lawsuit faults the Oregon Youth Authority for allegedly ‘fostering’ an atmosphere where sexual abuse of youths was known and ignored or condoned.”

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