Talk:Refrigerator death

Link RSA
Why do you think the RSA does not need to be linked?Kdammers (talk) 11:22, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

The RSA is linked, but WP doesn't have an entry so the link displays as red. — Molly-in-md (talk) 12:41, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Literary prose
There is an informative piece of creative nonfiction about RD. It includes references that might be of use, but the piece itself is probably inappropriate as a source: http://thenormalschool.com/death-by-refrigerator-by-b-j-hollars-2/ Kdammers (talk) 19:21, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Possible sources

 * ✅ http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2586/is-it-impossible-to-open-a-refrigerator-door-from-the-inside - includes some history, with death statistics and a mention of a death in the 21st century outside of the U.S.


 * https://www.insideedition.com/3-children-dead-after-getting-trapped-inside-freezer-while-playing-florida-yard-49989 Jan-2019


 * http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1424727/pdf/pubhealthrep00100-0121.pdf -This government report found 84 RDs in California alone for the period 1960-!980 (p. 234).


 * ✅ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/14/children-die-in-refrigerator_n_3926649.html -- deaths in South Africa in 2013


 * ✅ http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/two-girls-die-after-shutting-3880337 Two Russian deaths in 2014

So, we should now expand the geographical area of occurrence. Kdammers (talk) 19:41, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Tagged citations that are currently in use in the article with ✅. — Molly-in-md (talk) 17:22, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Outside USA
The article is tagged "Globalize/US". I've tried and failed to find information on comparable legislation to the Refrigerator Safety Act in other jurisdictions. This would seem to be the sort of thing there would be an obscurely named EU directive on, but searches trying to find such a thing are obscured behind a mountain of CFC-related hits. Anyone able to find anything? Otherwise an "outside US" section is going to be a list of incidents. --LukeSurlt c 14:14, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Hypothesis about late spread, after Refrigerator Safety Act
I, too, failed to find anything during several hours of searching. Very frustrating.

The only partially useful thing was a report from Australia ("Unintentional asphyxia (choking, suffocation and strangulation) in children aged 0-14 years", at https://www.monash.edu/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/218460/haz60.pdf). It suggests "Public awareness campaigns and parental education about the dangers of suffocation in bed should also focus on other products  that  are  associated  with suffocation  of  children  such  as  plastic bags, fridges and freezers and toy chests." However, even their own statistics do not show any refrigerator deaths.

My guess is that home refrigerator units spread from the U.S. mostly after the Refrigerator Safety Act had solved the problem. Put these quotations together:
 * Refrigerator says "These devices, or appliances, did not go into mass production for use in the home until after World War II."
 * http://www.whirlpoolcorp.com/wp-content/uploads/history_100years_factsheet.pdf says "1950: Investing in the industrial development of artisan villages in Varese, Italy, Giovanni Borghi builds a factory for 200 employees to manufacture not only ovens and cooktops, but also an appliance previously unknown in Italy: the refrigerator. "
 * Maytag says "During the 1950s, the 'white goods,' or laundry and kitchen appliance industry, grew rapidly."
 * https://www.truemfg.com/AboutUs/History says "1954: Going International - True sells its first coolers to the Caribbean and Central American markets, establishing the beginning of True’s international sales efforts."
 * http://gibson-intl.com/company-history says "1967: .... Built the 32-inch side-by-side Foodmaster practical for a majority of homes."
 * (side note: a quick scan didn't find anything useful in this 1961 GE pamphlet, but it's so adorable I wanted to save the link: https://web.archive.org/web/20091024170843/http://wiki.gmnext.com/wiki/uploads/0/0d/A_to_Zero_of_Refrigeration_LoRes.pdf)

Also, add in the requirement for in-home electricity. The international rate of electrification would be another research opportunity (the WP article on Electrification is shy on details), but might lead to some conclusions about timing. If electricity reached much of the world after RSA's 1958 implementation deadline, then they'd have the newer technology from the get-go.

All in all, I posit that only the U.S. had sufficient numbers of the old locking-latch units that posed such a hazard to playing children. For the rest of the world, they got refrigerators that already had the easy-opening doors. That would mean the phenomenon of refrigerator death was never the problem it was in the U.S. (notwithstanding the occasional sad suffocation story even now).

The problem for us WP editors, of course, is finding a reliable source that says that. My hypothesis is not enough! — Molly-in-md (talk) 12:37, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Counter-'hypothesis'
Yes, we need hard info. My counter-'hypothesis' is that there WERE latch refrigerators (and, probably, more ice-boxes) in some other countries. Maybe, though, they weren't left around with such abandon in other countries.


 * At https://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/8605239/The-rise-of-the-fridge.html, we are told that 2% of British households had refrigerators in 1948 and 13% in 1959.


 * At https://blog.liebherr.com/hausgeraete/de/wie-alles-begann-die-geschichte-des-kuehlschranks/, the figure for Germany is given as 10% in 1954.


 * https://www.expertentesten.de/geschichte-des-kuehlschranks/ says Cuba and other (unnamed) countries neighboring the U.S. had refrigerators as standard household appliances in the 1930s.

Kdammers (talk) 07:03, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

UK film
For what it's worth, the UK National Archives has a copy of a 1971 public information film about the need to remove doors from old refrigerators. The summary says "This public information film is concerned with the problem of children being suffocated in old fridges that, tempted by their playful imaginations, they want to climb into. The danger today has been largely eliminated by the introduction of magnetic seals instead of locks [emphasis mine]." The Archives entry is not dated, but I accessed it in 2020. See 'Children and Disused Fridges' at https://media.nationalarchives.gov.uk/index.php/children-and-disused-fridges/. — Molly-in-md (talk) 19:34, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Rewrote article
After thinking about this article for a while, I rewrote and considerably expanded it. The article was very thin, and that division of "US" and "Elsewhere" has always been problematic. Instead, the article is now divided into history, examples of dangerous equipment, mitigation techniques, and so on. It's much more balanced, but please continue to expand with citations and info from around the world. — Molly-in-md (talk) 17:18, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Magnet
I think this information from the Wik refrigerator article should be included in some way: "Modern units use a magnetic door gasket that holds the door sealed but allows it to be pushed open from the inside. This gasket was invented, developed and manufactured by Max Baermann (1903–1984) of Bergisch Gladbach/Germany ." Agreed? Kdammers (talk) 02:44, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Data on Deaths in Commercial "Walk-in Freezers", and Protocols for Prevention in that Case

 * I'm intruiged if there are more/less cases in the commercial use case
 * Also if special precautions/protocols are taken
 * Thinking something akin to those short term SCBA systems in Inert Gas Fire Extinguisher protected Server Rooms etc
 * Emergency Blanket or just a button etc — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eric Lotze (talk • contribs) 22:47, 14 January 2024 (UTC)