Treadmill Accident: Mike Tysons Daughter Dies After Her Neck Gets Caught in Exercise Machine Cord

A tragic treadmill accident this week claimed the life of former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson’s 4-year-old daughter Exodus On Monday, her 7-year-old brother found her with the cord that hangs from a treadmill console wrapped around her neck. Following the strangulation accident, Exodus’s mother tried to revive her with CPR while waiting for the paramedics to arrive at their home. The girl was then taken to a local hospital where she was placed on life support. Exodus died on Tuesday morning.
Treadmill Accidents
The US Consumer Product Safety Commission reports that every year, at least 2,600 kids are hurt in treadmill accidents end up in US emergency rooms. In Philadelphia alone, 12 children were injured in treadmill accidents in 2001—six of those injuries involved kids getting their hands stuck in the exercise machine’s belt. Their injuries were serious enough to require plastic surgery so they could open up their hands.
There also have been reports that hard edges, moving parts, and the programmed speeds of a treadmill can cause unexpected injuries to people. Researchers say that modifying treadmill designs, such as making the exercise machine harder to start and easier to stop, could prevent some of these accidents from happening.
The CPSC says that the treadmill is not the only kind of exercise equipment that has been known to cause injury to kids. Also:

  • About 25,000 children under the age of 14 are injured on exercise equipment every year.
  • Some 8,700 of these accidents involve kids younger than 5.
  • Stationary bikes and stair climbers are two other kinds of exercise equipment that have been known to cause injuries to children.
  • Amputations and fractures make up 20% of injuries to minors caused by exercise equipment.

While there are safety precautions that parents can take to protect their kids from getting hurt on a treadmill or another kind of exercise equipment, it is still up to the equipment manufacturer to make sure that their products do not have any design defects or manufacturing flaws that could cause cause injury or death if the equipment malfunctions. Warning of any potential hazards that may arise must be included with the product when it is delivered to the consumer.
Tyson’s Tragedy Shows Treadmill Danger, ABC News, May 27, 2009
Kids and treadmills: a bad combination, TampaBay.com, May 28, 2009
Related Web Resources:
Exercise (And Children On Exercise Machines), UAB Health Systems
CPSC

Throughout the US, our products liability lawyers represent families of children that were seriously injured in accidents involving defective or malfunctioning consumer products. Contact The Gilbert Law Group, P.C. today.

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