Bean bag chairs are a popular type of chair manufactured from vinyl or leather material. They contain small pieces of Styrofoam or PVC pellets inside the bag. When a person sits in the chair, the outer material shapes around the body. Bean bag chairs were particularly popular during the 1960s and 1970s, but slowly began to fade out during the next decade. Their attractiveness resumed in the mid 1990s as newer, more comfortable versions of the popular chair emerged onto the market. Bean bag chairs are commonly used as a comfortable and fun means of lounging or relaxing. The filling used in bean bag chairs varies from small pellets to shredded bits of polyurethane foam. Generally, the beads used to fill a bean bag chair are approximately 3-9 mm in diameter. However, micro-beads have now been introduced onto the market. These tiny bean bag chair beans can be as small as 1 mm in diameter. A suffocation and choking hazard exists as a result of children unzipping the bean bag chairs and playing with the filling fibers, or crawling inside of the bag.
In addition, inappropriately zippered bean bag chairs may release fibrous filling which can present a choking or asphyxiation danger. Bean bag chairs not meeting Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) standard regulations are subject to recall. CPSC standard regulations for bean bag chairs were put into effect in November 1996. The CPSC requires that all bean bag chairs available on the market be modified in an effort to prevent young children from opening the zipper and gaining access to the fibrous materials inside. Any bean bag chair that is capable of being refilled must possess a zipper with a lock that can only be opened with a special tool. All other chairs must either have a disabled zipper or no zipper at all. Permanent warning labels must also be present on bean bag chairs. In an effort to ensure that proper, sturdy fabrics that will not easily rip or tear are used in the creation of the bag, further CPSC standards require durability tests on the materials used in the manufacturing of bean bag chairs.
At least five deaths related to bean bag chairs were reported to the CPSC by 1995, prior to the government regulations set forth in 1996. The deaths occurred when children unzipped the chairs and crawled inside. The small, fibrous pellets were inhaled, causing asphyxiation resulting in death. At least 27 other incidences where children have choked on the pellets were also reported prior to CPSC standards. In July 1995, as part of an ongoing investigation concerning bean bag chairs, five manufacturers of the chairs announced a voluntary recall of more than 140,000 bean bag chairs. Prior to this, more than 12 million bean bag chairs were included by 10 other manufacturers. The five companies included in the voluntary recall in July 1995 include: B.A.T, Golden Needle co., Holbrook-Patterson, Inc., Lazy Bean, and Lewco Corp. The bean bag chairs involved in the recall were sold at specialty stores, educational supply companies, and through catalogs between 1989 and 1995. Thirty thousand bean bag chairs manufactured by Baseline Design of Linwood, Pennsylvania, were recalled as a result of suffocation and strangulation hazards.
Three reports were received noting young children opening the zipper on the bean bag chair easily and freely. One child inhaled the beads and required medical attention. The beanbag chairs were sold at Wal-mart stores nationwide from September 1999 to December 1999. Motifs included a football shape, baseball shape, basketball shape, a smiley face, and solid neon colors in green, yellow, blue, and pink. The bean bag chairs had a 12-inch double zipper, and contained small polystyrene beads that posed a choking and strangulation hazard.On Saturday, what would have been Leonardo Sanchez’s second birthday, his family will not have the party they had planned. Instead, they will hold a funeral. In a tragedy that unfolded in a matter of minutes at a day-care center in West Jordan, a suburb to the southwest of Salt Lake City, Danielle Sanchez lost her son. “He was a cute bundle of joy,” Sanchez said to Salt Lake City’s Fox 13. “He brought a lot of love.” /RWdWY3wL8T — FOX 13 News Utah (@fox13) September 10, 2016 Sanchez left Leonardo at West Jordan Child Center on Sept. 8.
It would mark the last moment she saw her son alive. Around noon, the toddler was playing with other children at the center — not unusual for a boy who, according to his mother, was always the life of the party. He crept beneath a bean bag chair at the day-care center to hide, according to West Jordan police who later reviewed security camera footage from that day. An employee of the center, seemingly unaware of Leonardo’s whereabouts, then sat on top of the chair. Why the employee did not notice Leonardo, or the child’s apparent absence from the room, is unclear. [Toddler who died a ‘painful, horrible death’ may have been placed in a freezer, officials say] “I’m just confused,” Sanchez said to NBC affiliate KSL. “I’m so confused on how you don’t know where my kid is. How do you not feel him? How do you not hear him scream?” She said that police told her that, for several minutes, the employee sat on the chair and read to other children. Sgt. Joe Monson, with the West Jordan police, called the incident a tragic accident.
Police say Leonardo was under the chair for up to 15 minutes before the day-care center noticed he was missing. He suffocated beneath the chair and was discovered unconscious. Responders attempted to resuscitate the toddler at the day care, the Salt Lake Tribune reported. He was pronounced dead at Salt Lake City’s Primary Children’s Hospital later that night. [After deaths of three toddlers, Ikea recalls millions of dressers] On Friday, Dan Sanchez, the boy’s father, told KUTV that the day-care needed to change its practices and be held accountable. “We regret deeply the tragic death of a young toddler at our day care facility. No words adequately describe the depth of the sorrow we feel. And, of course, we do not pretend to understand how devastating this is for the family,” West Jordan Child Center said in a statement Friday through its attorney Barry Johnson. As Johnson told KSL: “We know the family well, we grieve with them, and we pray that God will provide them the comfort and peace they inevitably will need.”