DOWNLOAD A LETTER TO THE CPSC AND MAIL IT TODAY!
A letter from WSC Founder Reed Cowan: Friends & visitors to our web site. If you care about the safety of children, I ask you to consider very carefully what you are about to read.
First of all, you need to know that Wesley Cowan would be alive today if swing set manufacturers and those who set minimum safety standards for swing set designs had heard and responded to the story of a little girl who was horrifically injured on a swing set like the one that killed my son. In that case, the child suffered an injury that leaves her graphically disfigured to this day. In that case, her mother petitioned the designer, the manufacturer and even the store that sold her the swing set to take it off the market and warn other parents to do the same. In that case, rather than doing the right thing, the swing set manufacturer hired lawyers to fight the mother of a child who will be forever disfigured.
Instead of responding with compassion and leadership in their own industry (which you will be able to hear more of in the video link provided on this page) swing set manufacturers and the CPSC turned a blind eye and did nothing. What they should have done is ban the swing set design which has been the source of TEN YEARS of a safety debate. If they had banned the design, if the CPSC had warned the public, WESLEY COWAN WOULD NOT HAVE DIED. As a nation of parents who care for children, we should be upset about this enough to act.
In short, I believe this: my son would be alive today had it not been for a swing set design which puts profit before people & cash before children. Wesley died of an accidental hanging. In the days after Wesley's death, lazy reporting characterized the cause of Wesley's death as being from "becoming entangled in a swing set chain." This is not true. Wesley had been crossing the horizontal bars of the swing set his aunt had purchased. The design of that swing set features horizontal monkey bars with a trapeze, and other swinging apparatus hanging from the side-to-side monkey bars. Chances are, you have at least one of these swing sets somewhere in your neighborhood and maybe in your own back yard. The truth of Wesley's death is this: As he crossed from side to side on the horizontal monkey bars, he fell. All children, from one time or another, will inevitably fall while crossing horizontal monkey bars. Instead of being able to fall freely to the ground, Wesley fell in to the corner of a trapeze suspended from the monkey bars he was crossing. He hung to death. Only Wesley did not hang from a noose, it was a trapeze bar. This design is deadly & we are working for change.
Recently, we convinced the ASTM committee (which sets minimum safety standards for swing set designers and manufacturers) to ban the MBOS (monkey bars over swings) design from the market. Our support was not unanimous and those who voted against us stood to profit from keeping this design on the market and in production for sale in the United States. However we took Wesley's story to them and the swing set manufacturers and designers who really care about children's safety voted WITH US to ban the design. Soon the MBOS standard will be written out of ASTM guidelines and manufacturers will no longer sell the product.
But here's the problem. The Consumer Product Safety Commission is turning a blind eye to the MBOS design, despite numerous reports of injuries, and even the death of a child. The CPSC is charged with protecting the public even from products that pose a small risk of injury or death to a child. Without a recall from the CPSC, swing sets like the one that killed Wesley, will continue to be used in back yards all over the country because parents will not have been warned by the very group that is SUPPOSED TO WARN THEM.
That's where you come in. I need you all to take a moment to print a copy of the following letter to the CPSC urging them to issue a recall on the MBOS swing set design. As we learned in our efforts lobbying members of the ASTM, we CAN make change happen and sincere appeals for change ARE heard and responded to with persistent effort.
I believe swing sets with SEPARATE play stations (ie. monkey bars in one place, trapeze and swing apparatus in another place, slides in another place) are closer to the boundaries of safety. Further, I believe that when manufacturers and distributors carry swing set designs with consolidated play stations (ie. swings and trapeze units suspended from monkey bars) we send our children to play on swing sets that are no better than gallows for children.
I ask you to DEMAND a CPSC recall. I ask you to take Wesley's story to your local newspaper, your local TV station and even your churches and schools. Tell everyone you know to call for a CPSC recall in the name of WESLEY COWAN and children like him everywhere. And until the CPSC does what they are supposed to do in this matter, if you see a swing set like the one that killed Wesley, demand its removal. You just might save a life. Thanks for considering these thoughts,
Reed Cowan Wesley's Dad