Human rights activists have proposed to review the standards of windows in apartments

The incidence of children falling out of windows is growing at an alarming rate. Literally every other day, sad news comes from different regions. Children either die or get injured. The last tragedy happened in Novocherkassk - on June 25, a two-year-old baby fell out of the window of the 5th floor and died on the way to the hospital. Experts attribute the increasing frequency of accidents to the fact that many parents work remotely and it is difficult for them to keep track of the child in such a situation.

Across Russia, in 2017, 848 children dropped out of the windows, 106 of them died, in 2018 - already 905 cases, of which 123 were fatal, 33 remained disabled; in 2019, 125 children died for this reason. By 2020, the Ministry of Internal Affairs plans to give statistics on July 15, but it is already obvious that the number will increase. Falling from a height is one of the leading causes of child mortality over a year in Russia.

Here is the news of the very last days: on June 23 in Kurgan a two-year-old child fell out of the window of an apartment on the second floor, now he is in the hospital. On June 24, in Magnitogorsk, a 4-year-old girl fell from the height of the 3rd floor, is in a clinic with broken internal organs. She leaned on a mosquito net.

In the Irkutsk region, incidents occurred on June 22 and 25: in the first case, the baby fell out of the window of a 2-story building and was not badly injured, and in the second, the 3-year-old boy, left unattended by adults, climbed onto the windowsill and fell down from the height of the third floors, now in the hospital. In Bashkiria in June alone, 5 children fell out of the windows there, one died.

In each of these accidents, investigators check to determine the degree of guilt of the parents. As a rule, a criminal case “Causing death through negligence” is instituted against them.

How to deal with this disaster, MK learned from experts.

Advisor to the Russian Union of Rescuers Vladimir Rurikovich gave advice on how to prevent trouble.

- At what age do children most often fall out of the window?

- As a rule, these are two and three year old children. A child at this age is a researcher. He has no sense of danger, fear. Only at a certain age, somewhere around six years old, is he able to absorb information and evaluate what is happening.

Mosquito nets are fraught with great threat, they are very weakly attached, and when the child rests on them, he falls out. What needs to be done in addition to, of course, parental control: first, it is better to remove the window handles, do not think that the child will not unscrew them. Many windows with corner transoms that do not open, but recline. Opened - remove the handles, put an additional lock, hook so that the child does not push the transom. Next, you need to install some kind of obstacle in front of the windowsill so that the child does not reach him. For example, screw boards to the wall. It is not necessary to think that the child will not pull up on the windowsill.

The most reliable solution is the window grilles. They must be securely fastened. But if they are installed on the first floors, then, as a rule, not on the upper floors.

- Indeed, it happens to teenagers, what would you advise them?

- It happens, and quite often. Young people are fun to sit on the windowsill of an open window and chat with their legs, play the guitar, listen to music, take selfies and so on. First, never sit on a windowsill, especially if the window is open. He looked down, dizzy - this can happen to everyone. Do not forget that when you sit with headphones and listen to music, you are disconnected to some extent. You take control of danger, you lose orientation. He turned and fell out. And, of course, you should not sit drunk on the windowsill.

In Moscow, serious measures are being prepared to prevent emergencies related to children falling out of windows. The Commissioner for Children's Rights in Moscow, Olga Yaroslavskaya, is preparing an initiative that will systematically deal with the problem, which she told MK:

- We believe that it is time to take radical measures to protect children from falling from a height, because whatever advice the rescuers and the police give parents, this does not stop.

Since 2016, builders have been obliged to install special windows with locks during the construction of kindergartens and other educational institutions. But all cases of falling out of windows over the past six months have occurred in the residential sector. Children fall from the windows of their apartments!

Therefore, I am preparing a proposal on the need to amend the building rules in Moscow, which would oblige in high-rise new buildings to install only such windows that are protected by locking devices from children.

Moscow is under construction, renovation is underway, among the newcomers a huge number of families with small children. If the city obliged builders to install only safe windows, hundreds of children's lives would be saved. Today, the protection of family and childhood in our country has been declared a priority, and I hope that such a proposal will be considered and accepted.

Source: https://www.mk.ru/