17-year-old Gavin Waller is incredibly lucky to be alive. As a toddler, he almost choked to death on a blind cord.
Gavin recently allowed his family to release the home video footage of the harrowing incident as part of an ABC investigation into the hazard in an effort to raise awareness of the safety issues surrounding blind cords.
In the video, Gavin’s mother is filming her children playing in the living room when she notices Gavin being strangled with the chord around his neck. She immediately drops the camera and runs to Gavin, who has stopped breathing. After moments of heart-breaking silence he miraculously splutters, cries and takes another breath.
You can view the video below, though be warned, it’s incredibly hard to watch even knowing young Gavin survived to tell the tale.
Gavin told ABC News, “I’m glad that it’s out there. It saved the lives of other children that have been fortunate enough to have parents who have seen the video.”
Both Ikea and Target have stopped selling blinds with accessible cords; however they will still be available in US department stores Home Depot, Walmart and Lowe’s until 2018.
Elliot Kaye, chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission has called for greater action to be taken. Tragically over 100 children have died in the US in similar incidents since Gavin’s brush with death, even though the US government have been aware of the safety issues relating to these types of blind chords for the last 30 years.
