SAN DIEGO, Calif. — Parents with young children are being encouraged to add child locks to their home’s windows following the recent death of two children in military housing in San Diego County.
"It's such a simple thing you can fix," said Lorrie Lynn, manager of injury prevention programs at Rady Children’s Hospital.
Since May, doctors at Rady have treated nine children injured in window falls.
Three of those incidents happened in June and July, killing two kids and leaving a third injured with a concussion.
The latest fatality involving a window fall happened in La Mesa on July 5th.
'Screens don't keep kids in'
On July 24th, a child got a concussion after falling from a second-floor bedroom window in the Murphy Canyon neighborhood. That window had a lock installed, but it was disengaged.
Lynn tries to encourage parents of young children every summer to take a look at their home's windows.
"Screens don't keep kids in. They keep bugs out," Lynn said.
In the past two years, she said 58 children have been rushed to Rady's after being hurt in a window fall.
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A spokesperson for Liberty Military Housing confirmed three window fall incidents happened in PPV housing in June and July. The company has been working proactively to stop window falls, the spokesperson said.
"Liberty is vigilant about window safety and we do everything we can to ensure that our 36,000 homes are safe for the military families who live there," the spokesperson said.
The company added: "Each home within Liberty's portfolio is inspected by both Liberty and representatives from the Navy before each family moves into the home. If the window fall protection devices are found not to be operating properly, the home fails its inspection and cannot be occupied."
Back at Rady Children's Hospital, Lynn is encouraging parents to move furniture away from windows that young kids can climb on.
"You can get lots of easy non screw in safety devices from your local Amazon or anything else," Lynn said.
