This Sunday is Mother’s Day, a day when many of us delight in our children and our moms. It is reminder of the precious gift of children – and a chance for those children to honor their mothers for the daily tasks, the big sacrifices and the bountiful love they give.
But this year, Sunday also marks the 15th anniversary of the death of Danny Keysar. Danny died when he was sixteen months old when the portable crib he slept in at child care collapsed as he stood up, closing around his neck. Through their unimaginable grief, Danny’s parents realized that this was something that shouldn’t have happened – the products we buy to keep our babies safe should not be the cause of their death or injury. Shortly after Danny’s death, Linda and Boaz founded Kids In Danger and began to fulfill our mission – remaking the nation’s children’s product safety system into one that protects children from harm while at the same time giving parents the tools they needed to keep their own children safe.
KID has made remarkable progress since that date. There is now “Danny’s Law” that requires standards and testing for cribs, play yards and other juvenile products and hundreds of thousands of parents and caregivers have heard KID’s safety message. All of this is the legacy of Danny and all children killed or injured by unsafe children’s products.
For his parents, KID is a poor substitute for their vibrant, loving funny little boy – who would now be a young man. But for the rest of us, his legacy has truly saved lives and we owe to his family and the other families who have lost children to unsafe products, a real debt of gratitude on this anniversary and Mother’s Day.
