Wednesday 17 March 2010

One in a million

From The Stockport Express:

... Francis died despite frantic attempts to save him when the lolly became lodged in his throat... The lolly had no warning on its cellophane wrapper. It came from an assortment bag which carried a warning on its reverse. It read: "Lollipops are a potential choking hazard. Not suitable for children under 36 months."

Mr Dean, an NHS gym instructor, said the warning should be more prominent. He said: "They told me they sell 40 million of those lollies. Even if this is a one-in-a-million thing that’s 40 kids. The warning needs to be made bigger and it needs to be put on the front. It might have saved Francis, it might not have done, but something needs to be done."


Yeah, but it's not forty kids a year choking to death, is it? It's one kid and counting out of forty million lollies x a lot of years they've been selling them.

Fail.

8 comments:

BTS said...

Isn't it possible to choke on pretty much anything though? And isn't that also what the Heimlich manoevre is for?

Lying the kid down on his back was probably not the best option really..

But then, I did once get a raisin stuck up my nose as a child. Sunmaid could have some difficulty with that one..

dearieme said...

The poor wee soul was two - he couldn't have read the bloody warning anyway.

Mark Wadsworth said...

BTS, you can choke on anything. DK covered the case of a lad choking on a pen top, er, two and a half years ago. I'll see your raisin and raise you a pea which disappeared up my sister's nose forty years ago. My parents weren't around so I never got the blame for that.

D, that's why children usually get allocated one or two parents to read the packaging.

MA, agreed. Every month one set of parents in the USA has to learn the hard way that you DON'T GIVE BABIES LONG LENGTHS OF CORD TO PLAY WITH.

Brian, follower of Deornoth said...

"NHS gym instructor"

That is to say, an utterly valueless parasite too think to be employed in any other way. You can't expect numeracy from vermin like that.

Assuming they had any interest in the truth anyway.

Mark Wadsworth said...

BFOD, "too think to be employed"??

John Pickworth said...

Laughing my ass off - Sorry, I know its bad form, a kid died an all, but still. With parents like that he wasn't ever likely to see his tenth birthday anyway.

formertory said...

One of the defining characteristics of lollies when I was a kid was that the lolly bit would always easily pop off the stick. Giving such a thing to a very young child is criminal negligence. It shouldn't need a label for a parent to know that.

BUT I do think the parents need to be cut a little slack, stupid or not. Just after losing a child isn't the time in their lives when they're most likely to be most rational. I suggested the same thing to DK over the pen-top incident you refer to, MW, and got short shrift then, too.

That's OK. I've personal experience of being moved temporarily to irrationality through loss and guilt, and I said and thought some pretty stupid stuff then, too. Did some stupid things, as well. It wasn't the most glorious experience and I cringe, looking back and wondering what the hell people thought of me then. But that's the way of things.

Most of us move on to accept our culpability and live with it. Rationality returns. Don't be too hard on these people for something stupid said at a vulnerable time.

James Higham said...

The lolly had no warning on its cellophane wrapper.

That's the bit which gets me. The kid takes a sweet and says, "Oh no, I can't eat this - there's no warning on the wrapper."