Toddlers Hurt, Killed By Dangerous Furniture Twice A Month, Study Shows

CHICAGO (CBS) -- A year-long study about furniture in most U.S. bedrooms came out with shocking results.

CBS2's Lauren Victory reports, the study found toddlers are hurt or killed by dangerous dressers as often as twice a month.

Lisa Siefert of Barrington Hills knows the situation first-hand. Her 2-year-old son, Shane, was killed in a furniture incident during March of 2011.

"It can happen. It does happen, and I can say it's the worst thing you can imagine, but you can't imagine," Siefert tells CBS2 Chicago.

Since then, Siefert has founded Shane's Foundation and partnered with Underwriters Laboratories and Kids in Danger for the recent study on deadly dressers.

"Thinking of my son and that's why I'm doing this because I don't want that to happen to anybody," she said.

Researchers from Underwriters Laboratories, a global safety science company, put actual furniture marketed for children's rooms to the test. More than half failed.

"Only two units passed all of our testing, including the additional testing protocols that we added," said Nancy Cowles, executive director of Kids in Danger.

Statistics from the study show:

• Every hour, three kids are injured by tip-over incidents.
• A child dies this way every two weeks.
• Fallen furniture killed at least five Illinois children between 2011 and 2012.

One of the main goals of the project is to push for stronger mandatory standards in place of current voluntary ones. Congress recently considered a bill about this, by Illinois' Rep. Jan Schakowsky.

"I will be asking the furniture industry and the consumer products safety commission to look at this test," Shakowsky said.