During this time of year when the temperature rises and there are many opportunities to open the windows of the house, it is the accident of a child falling from the balcony.
An experiment was conducted in Yokohama City in which small children actually participated to verify whether such a fall accident could be prevented by attaching a rotating type handrail to the fence of the balcony.
According to the national demographic survey, there have been 37 accidents in which children under the age of 9 fell from buildings such as the verandas of condominiums and died in the five years up to 2018.
The experiment on the 10th was sponsored by an NPO that is working to reduce such child accidents, and was conducted at a nursery school in Izumi-ku, Yokohama, with the participation of more than 70 children aged 3 to 5 years.
What was verified this time is whether the handrail installed on the fence of the balcony is effective in preventing children from getting over the fence if it is a type of device that rotates when touched.
In the experiment, we used a device that imitated the fence of the balcony, and while changing the conditions of the height of the fence and the position of the handrail, we investigated under what conditions the child could not get over the fence by age.
▼ At the age of 3, everyone was caught by the rotating handrail and could not get over the fence.
▼ At the ages of 4 and 5, many children could not get over it, but
they got over the fence by holding the handrail. A child was also seen.
According to the NPO, the reason why the rotary handrail was used in this experiment is that it is difficult to prevent children from getting over the fence just by raising the fence of the balcony in the past experiment. That is.
This NPO aims to improve the rotating type handrail by referring to the experimental results on the 10th, and to put it into practical use so that it can be attached to an actual balcony.
Mikiko Ohno, director of NPO "Safe Kids Japan", said, "Because of the influence of the new corona, there are more opportunities to open windows, so we need to be more careful about falling accidents. We will continue to include rotary handrails. , I want to consider various measures. "
Even during the Golden Week holidays, he fell from the balcony on the 4th floor and was seriously injured.
Even during the Golden Week holidays, there was an accident in Tokyo where a child fell off the balcony and was seriously injured.
According to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, on May 3, an elementary school girl under the age of 10 fell from the balcony on the 4th floor at an apartment in Kiba, Koto-ku, Tokyo.
He was found lying near the front door of the condominium and was taken to the hospital, but he was seriously injured with a broken leg and arm.
On the veranda of the room on the 4th floor where the girl lives, there was a fence with a handrail that was about 1 meter high, but it is high enough for children to climb on their own.
Also at the time, her parents were out shopping in the neighborhood, and the girl was away with her brother, but her brother was in another room and didn't notice the fall.
The Metropolitan Police Department is investigating the situation at the time, assuming that the girl climbed the balcony fence for some reason and she accidentally fell.
Causes of fall accidents and points of countermeasures
Why are there endless accidents in which children fall off the balcony?
From the analysis so far, the NPO corporation that conducted the experiment points out that
▼ the fall can occur in a shorter time than the imagination of an adult and
▼ there is a limit to the measures to raise the fence.
Until now, it has been considered important to keep an eye on parents and to raise the fence of the balcony as a measure to prevent a fall accident.
However, as a result of experiments on people aged 3 to 5, it took less than 30 seconds for a child to get over a fence of about 1 meter in most cases.
Some children got over it in about 5 seconds, so even if the parents take their eyes off for a while, there is a risk of a fall accident.
On the other hand, it is said that there is a limit to the measures to raise the fence of the balcony.
According to national standards, the height of fences on balconies such as condominiums must be 110 cm or more to prevent falls.
However, in past experiments, if the height of the fence was set to 120 cm, which is 10 cm higher than the standard, ▼ 60% or more at 3 years old, ▼ 70% or more at 4 years old, and ▼ 90% or more at 5 years old could overcome the fence. I did.
In the case of 140 cm,
▼ 3 years old could not overcome even one,
▼ 20% or more at 4 years old,
▼ 70% or more at 5 years old can overcome
the fence, and measures to raise the fence at 5 years old and over The effect of was hardly seen.
Then, how should we take measures?
We asked Mikiko Ohno, a director of NPO, about the points.
One of them is not to put anything on the balcony that can be used as a scaffolding for children.
If there is something that can be used as a scaffold, it may be easier to climb the fence in a shorter time.
In addition to flower pots, it is easy to put things that you do not use in your daily life on the balcony, but it is important not to put things that could be a scaffolding in a family with children.
The second is to take measures on the windows so that the child cannot go out to the balcony by himself.
In addition to putting an auxiliary key out of the reach of children, there is also a way to utilize removable countermeasure goods that open only the safe width of the window.
Frequent occurrence at 3-4 years old, which stands out in early summer and autumn
Accidents of children falling from balconies or windows in condominiums tend to be more noticeable in early summer and autumn when windows are often opened.
According to the Consumer Affairs Agency, there were a total of 70 fall accidents involving children under the age of 5 in the five years up to 2019 announced by the Tokyo Fire Department.
Of these,
19 cases, which is 27% from May to June,
and 21 cases, which is 30% from September to October
, account for nearly 60% of the total when the two periods are combined.
In addition, fall accidents occur frequently between the ages of 3 and 4, which is also the time when children themselves begin to move around freely.
In order to prevent such accidents, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism has started a new project to subsidize the cost when installing equipment for ensuring the safety of children, such as handrails that do not have a place to put a foot on apartment buildings such as condominiums. I did.
For example, when renovating and installing an apartment, we will subsidize up to 1 million yen per unit after screening.