Parents forced to be on guard as hidden dangers lurk at corners

A hotel door collapsed on a 7-year-old boy, leaving him badly injured, in Shanghai’s Changning District on December 22.

Initial investigation suggested that a bolt shorter than normal was the cause of the accident.

The mishap came on the heels of another tragedy earlier this month. On December 8, a girl, 6, was hit on the head and torso when a dressing room mirror in a store in Xuhui District collapsed. She was rushed to hospital but succumbed to her injuries.

As a father myself, I cannot but feel deep sympathy for these two families. To lose a child or see a child suffer in agony is heartbreaking. What’s worse, the thought that similar things can happen again and harm the most vulnerable group is terrifying, enough to keep many parents awake at night.

I may sound paranoid, but this is perhaps how many young parents of my age feel about the challenge we face in keeping our children out of harm’s way, because there are just too many hidden risks around us.

Yesterday it was a dressing room mirror, today it is a hotel door. You wonder what’s next?

The ironic thing about parenting is that after all that we’ve done to make sure our children are led, coaxed, or simply dragged away from potential danger, be it a rickety scaffolding, a construction site, or a manhole with a missing cover, we could still be hit in a seemingly safe environment when we let our guards down — a five-star hotel, or a posh department store — for instance.

Years ago, I wrote an article about an even more horrible event that occurred in Hubei Province in 2015. A mother was sucked into a gaping hole and crushed to death after the escalator floor she stood on caved in.

Watching the video footage of the incident made my hair stand on end, not just because it was a brutal way to die, but because nobody perhaps expected a happy visit to a shopping mall to end in a tragedy like this.

It was reported that after his daughter died, the Shanghai father visited the scene of the tragedy the following day. He examined how a mirror fitted to the wall could have suddenly collapsed. In effect, “fitted” was an overstatement. The mirror was glued to the wall using silicone adhesives, and no metal frame or structure was installed to hold it in place.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the silicone adhesives aren’t a very reliable substance in supporting an object weighing over 50 kilograms. And it certainly never dawned on the store owners that a broken mirror was as deadly as a falling elevator, however remote the possibility.

I hate to say this, but it appears that every tragedy teaches us a lesson on how to improve public safety and keep our officials on their toes. Shanghai’s work safety commission office has called for inspections at hotels, restaurants, shopping malls, stadiums, entertainment venues, schools and public spaces across the city.

Bearing in mind the large volume of tourists expected to pour into Shanghai during the upcoming holidays, inspectors warned in a notice that safety checks should involve everyone, from officials to volunteers, from landlords to proprietors.

Routine safety checks

I especially salute the official statement that routine safety checks will begin from March next year. Exactly how “routine” remains unclear, but I have a feeling that this time things might be a little different, with our safety officials poised to adopt a new “leaving no stones untouched” approach in doing their jobs.

To their credit, Shanghai’s government agencies are among the nation’s best in terms of efficiency in responding to life-threatening situations.

This was in full evidence when the city’s disaster preparedness in the face of three successive typhoons this summer earned the city praise from the citizens.

But in a city of 24 million, they often have too many things on their plate, and risks do occasionally slip off the radar. Four months ago, a billboard on Nanjing Road fell and collapsed on pedestrians, killing three and injuring another six.

Despite Shanghai’s best efforts at forestalling risks in public spaces, we have to admit that there will always be blind spots, and they are too numerous to be detected during a single law enforcement operation. Therefore, for those charged with keeping our city in running order, it would be great if they can go that extra mile in ensuring that our city is safe for everyone, adults or children.