because airport security tampered with my babyharness and did not tell me?

[Ionama]

On a recent attempt to go on holiday, I took off my Baby Bojorn harness and put it thru the xray, I put it on the way I had taken it off and plugged my baby back into the strap I had opened. 5 minutes later may baby fell out of the carrier resulting in a serious injury and I have come to find that 2 side buttons of the harness had been undone. The trip ended up being a 5 day stay in hospital for my baby (and us). No-one told me to come while they 'inspected' my carrier and it was simply in the tray with my hand bag etc. Am I being unreasonable in wanting them to inform parents if/when they do this?.. so that another child's safety is never again compromised..? I am still very much in shock and recovery from my baby's injury... :(

no - she DIDN'T KNOW to do them up. that's the whole fucking point.

god.

parp too.

She also doesn't know that the buttons were undone by security staff. That;s the whole (fucking) point!

She would have known if she had checked them. The sling was perfectly usable - there was nothing wrong with it - you are meant to be able to undo the buttons - why would you be able to undo them, if undoing them renders the sling unusable???

And parp?? Is that meant to be an insult?

I have the original version of the BB. When you take it off you HAVE to undo one of the to bottom clips (there are 2 one on each side). There are then 2 more clips on each side. Its possible to take it off with only undoing at one side.

However it would be totally obvious when you put it back on. Sorry but I don't really believe this.

I have put my BB whilst sitting here, and for a baby to fall out you would have to not have it done up at one side, and frankly I can't see how it would be possible not to notice.

"It is an older model also, two buttons either side, base clips and top poppers."

That is the one I have. 6 clips in total. Which ones did you undo to put it on the xray machine, and which ones did they undo.

You can take it off just undoing the left or right side (3 clips). It might be possible to get out of it just buy undoing the bottom two left or bottom 2 right clips and pulling it over head. So presumably they then unclipped the other side?

But what I don't understand is when you put it back on how you didn't realise that it was now totally open at the bottom on one side?

MumNWLondon - I agree, I've been looking at my babybjorn sling too, and I cannot work out what would have been undone that would have been so unobvious that it would be visible when either putting the sling on me or putting my dd in it.

I think it is possible - if you've not slipped the red or blue sliding mechanism down properly - dh has done this - but it looks fastened, and you've undone the top popper to slide the baby in, the baby could tumble sideways, even though the central crotch strap is in place.

However, I do wonder if Ionama has looked back to make events fit and she'll never know for sure. She could have made the error herself with the fastenings which only became apparent when putting the baby back in; the babycarrier could have snagged on another piece of luggage or it could indeed be the fault of the airport staff. The difficulty will be raising this with the airport in question, who might be very wary of admitting anything.

I hope your ds is better soon

I am now actually feeling compelled to go up in the loft to retrieve my Bjorn from amongst the cobwebs..........

Dinah I think you have a point.......if the sliding clips aren't clicked in properly then one could come undone resulting in baby falling out sideways. The OP is saying that "2 side buttons had been undone" though, and I can't for the life of me work out what she means......is it the button shape clips at the top (one on each side) which hold the head support bit? But then it can't be because you would have to undo those yourself to put baby in.......

although maybe her model doesn't have sliding clips........?

bronze I think you got luck being allowed to carry your DC through in a sling.

At LHR I tried to carry my sleeping son through in my arms after I was asked to take him out of his pushchair so that could be scanned.

I was made to wake him up so he could walk through alone (he was about 14mths iircc) it was awful he was hysterical at having been woken up, couldn't really cordinate himself to walk through without me and was in the end dragged by the wrist by security.

did you complain, nancy?

I would have been livid if any of the security staff laid a hand on either of my dds when they are worried aboout walking through the security arch.

It's one of the things I have talked to them about before now, as dd1 is always wary of it (she's 6 now, but ASD, so quite stressed in unfamiliar surroundings)

Oh and I am not commenting on the OP other than to say it sounds like a terrible accident.

That is an apalling, horrible thing for you to experience with your baby, Ionama, and I'm truly sorry for you that it happened.

But YABU to blame the airport. Ultimately your baby's safety is your responsibility, not the airport's and, if you know they handled it at all, then you should have checked it. We all make shit mistakes like that. I bet most of us have once driven to the end of hte road before realising we didn't strap our babies into their car seats. Luckily it rarely means that any harm actually comes to the baby. Unfortunately not checking your carrier did mean harm came to your baby in this instance . But it's not the airport's fault and you would be unreasonable to try to sue them

Horrible for your poor baby, but like most on this thread I agree that it is your responsibility to check your gear before you use it.

Sorry, I've been sitting on my hands for quite some time, but honestly, I don't believe it.

1. They would not undo anything without the owner being spoken to first - it's not worth their jobs (the laptop was taken away as presumably they thought it could be a bomb then the owner was told - huge difference).

1. It is very very difficult, almost impossible, to see how you wouldn't notice this had been done .

1. IF it had happened at the airport, the OP would still be filling in H&S forms in triplicate.

1. You can't just call an ambulance and have it come to you at the airport - the airport would already be hugely involved with this.

1. IF you believed the airport had done this, you would have told someone at the time and the footage would have been reviewed.

Need I go on?

Agree with ChippingIn. Don't accidents in a workplace that result in a member of the public being taken to hospital have to be reported to the Health and Safety Executive, under the RIDDOR regulations?

Another thing that surprised me was calling 999 straightaway. Obviously, it was a good thing with the benefit of hindsight, but don't most of us observe our children for a bit to see how they are after a bump to the head?

I suppose it would depend on the extent of the injuries Mme. If the baby was unconcious or bleeding profusely then I imagine an ambulance would be called pretty sharpish, especially for a baby small enough to be in a BabyBjorn.

I wish that Ionama would come back and answer some of the queries that people have raised.

I don't understand why paperwork wasn't filled it, etc. if it happened in front of the security, or at least a fuss wasn't made by the staff. When my DD was 2y she ran and fell and hit her head on the edge of the security passway thing. Security came running to check she was ok and it was noted down in their accident book, or similar, too.

Also - how was the item out of your sight for long enough to be examined and undone? You walk alongside the machine as it xrays your stuff. If things are looked at physically by hand it is done at the bottom on the conveyor, normally with you there. I have never known them to open stuff on those machines without a person being there.

i have only glanced through some of the posts so forgive me if this questions already been asked
op you say that it was 5 days before you checked the harness surely if your dc slipped out of the harness you would have checked it before then to see why the accident had happened i know your dc would have been your main concern but i would have then wanted to know how it happened and i would have thought it would have been brought up by airport staff or paramedics

Should read all but Security, well in the Uk should ( and usually don't) ever look / tamper with your goods unless you are in front of them ...Then they say ..Is this yours and can I look at it ?

op you need to go and look again at how you put it on. The buttons you say were undone are mainly so stop very young babies from falling out. very old slings (about 10 years old) don't have them. I could never do them up round my children so didn't use them. If it is adjusted to the right height and the baby has its arms out unless the plastic clips breaks can't see how a baby would fall out. It goes without saying that it has to be done up tightly round mum.

So you might be better venting your anger at Babybjorn makers instead of airport security folk??

This child is not the first to fall out of the leg holes of a BB:

"INFANT CARRIERS
Kolcraft, Graco, Cosco,Evenflo and Playskool have all had hard-handle infant carriers recalled because the carriers' handles unlatched unexpectedly, often hurling infants to the ground and causing injuries that included skull fractures and concussions. Baby Bjorn, a Swedish company known for its high-end soft infant carriers, successfully resisted the CPSC's recall efforts for more than a year by claiming ignorance of Section 15: they didn't know about the CPSC's statute that requires a company to self-report product defects.

Small infants can draw up into a fetal position inside these carriers and slip out of the leg openings, 240,000 recalled. The U.S. distributor for Baby Bjorn, Regal + Lager, learned in May 1995 that a 10-day-old baby had slipped through the leg hole of a Baby Bjorn carrier and fractured his skull. Although the distributor claimed that the incident was attributable to product misuse, Baby Bjorn began manufacturing a new version of the product with smaller leg openings. A year later, a 16-day old infant fell out of her Baby Bjorn carrier and fractured her skull. Similar reports accumulated in the following months. More skull fractures, a concussion, internal bleeding were reported. All of the babies had slipped through the leg holes of the Baby Bjorn.
After several meetings involving the CPSC and Baby Bjorn's U.S. distributors, and one with Baby Bjorn's company's president, Bjorn Jakobson, an agreement was reached to recall the carrier. By the time the recall notice reached the public and the CPSC had approved the carrier "retro-fit," it was Christmas. The CPSC held the notice until January 1999, three and a half years after the first child was injured by the Baby Bjorn infant carrier."

Source: www.safetyforum.com/childsafety/

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