I hate my treadmill.  Seriously.  It just sits there taking up room with some of my shirts hanging on it and a few of my wife’s delicates drying over its rails.  I upgraded to an eliptical, which I hate as well.  I keep telling myself it’s because I’m an outdoorsey kind of get my exercise in mother nature kind of guy. Actually, it’s because I’m a couch potato.  But I’ve pounded several hundred, maybe thousands of miles on that treadmill and guess it’s been “better than nothing”. I did learn a lesson the other day when my grand-daughter was over playing on it.  I had it on 1.5 mile an hour and she was getting her ya-yas out and having a good time (she’s a long-legged 5 year old). The problem was when my other 4 year old little short legged grand-daughter jumped on behind her sister unexpectedly. I was folding laundry and was going to get one more shirt on a hanger before sorting the girls out when I heard a blood curdling scream and looked around to see the girls in a heap.  After figuring out the little one was fine, I inspected the older one. When her sister jumped on the machine, it had momentarily stopped the wheel and had bunched up the tread. When the little one jumped off again, all the tread quickly wound back up and jerked the oldest down onto her knees and she’d briefly caught the side of her foot between the tread and the frame.  It resulted in a nasty surface abrasion and a little cut.  And also in a time out for her little sister, which ended in pudding cups for everyone because I’m soft hearted.

In all seriousness, treadmills are the cause of more than 25,000 injuries to children each year.  There is an increase of the number of children that end up in emergency rooms each year due to these potentially dangerous machines and other home exercise equipment. According to Consumer Reports, children can be harmed in a variety of ways by home gyms.  If you think about it, they are like kids magnets. It’s like a jungle gym to them. I’ve set some very firm ground rules with the girls and the treadmill from now on out, but it’s still a good way to let them get their rainy day energy out so I think I’ll keep it around along with plenty of bandaids and pudding cups.

The death of Mike Tyson’s 4-year-old daughter Exodus, highlighted the dangers of treadmills and other home exercise equipment.

If your child has been injured, please call or click to discuss what is in your child’s best interest.


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