Ikea Recalling Dressers After Two Children Die from Falling Drawers


In February 2014, a two-year-old boy from Pennsylvania was killed after an Ikea Malm dresser tipped over and pinned him to his bed. In another incident in June of that year, a 23-month-old child died after being trapped beneath falling drawers from the same line of Ikea’s popular dressers.

The company is now offering a free repair kit to 27 million customers who purchased the company’s Malm dressers to help remove the furniture’s “tip-over hazard.”

The recall is in conjunction with a safety alert issued by the Consumer Product Safety Commission on Wednesday warning of the dressers’ potential dangers. The commission recommended that parents no longer buy Malm dressers taller than 23.5 inches for children and 29.5 inches for adults, unless the products are properly secured to a wall.

The free repair kits provide such an anchoring mechanism.

Malm Dresser, Ikea

The company said in total it received 14 accident reports stemming from the line’s drawers, four of which resulted in injuries.

In a statement, Ikea’s U.S. commercial manager Patty Lobell said the company was “deeply saddened” by the deaths and hoped its efforts would “prevent further tragedies.”

For information on how to receive the free repair kit, head over to the commission’s alert here.

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate