A young girl from a state to our south suffered a serious injury from an uncommon source. According to family members, the now-7-year-old girl was kicking a soccer ball around a couple of years back when she lost her balance and fell backwards. She landed on her head and became the unwitting victim of a dangerous product she was wearing. It was a hair tie.
The impact caused her skull to fracture. It was an injury that the girl’s family could not have foreseen; a fact likely true of similar accidents in New Jersey.
Doctors explained that the plastic Hello Kitty hair tie served as both a rock and a knife in the fall. It imbedded itself in the girl’s head upon impact. The hard material it was made out of increased the damage done because sharp corners of some cube shapes in the hair tie cut through her skull. At the age this happened, a child’s skull is still developing. As a result of the severe impact, the girl suffered traumatic brain injuries and now experiences memory loss and attention deficit disorders.
Research by the girl’s mother revealed that the accident suffered by the girl was not as rare as the family at first thought. As a result of the mother’s discovery, the injured girl and her sister began making hair tie accessories made of soft materials and selling them to consumers. Due to this sisterly partnership, the girls have been able to pay for summer camp and plan to donate any extra money to charity.
Companies owe New Jersey consumers a duty of reasonable care to ensure safety when products are used as intended. When a company breaches that duty of care, its negligence may result in products liability claims based on allegations of a dangerous product.
It is not known if such a legal claim has been made by this seriously injured girl. Nor is it known if the company that manufactured the product has ever recalled the hair tie or taken any steps to ensure similar accidents do not occur again.
Source: WOAI.com, “Girl’s hair tie causes skull fracture,” July 10, 2012
