DECATUR, AL (WAFF) -
Since 2006, more than 16,000 children in the U.S. have gone to the emergency room due to "tip over" furniture accidents. Reports show 200 children have died in the last decade.
Kady Beavers remembers the day, as a mother, when her heart stood still.
"It happened on August 30th around 7. When I pulled up there was two fire trucks and an ambulance pulling up and when I came in Dakota was laying in the middle of the floor from the TV falling on him." He had to be airlifted to Huntsville Hospital," she said.
4-year-old Dakota was told to turn the TV off in his room. His mother said rather than using a remote, he climbed the chest of drawers. The chest and TV fell and crushed him.
"When he got to Huntsville Hospital, they had to do emergency surgery on the side of his head. There was a blood clot they had to get rid of and they didn't know if he would live or die," she said.
At one point Dakota was in a coma, in ICU and on a ventilator.
"After his surgery, the doctors told me that what took them so long to get him from the Aqua Dome to Huntsville Hospital because he died and they had to bring him back before they could transport him onto the helicopter," she said.
[Click here to read ways to prevent furniture tip-over accidents in your home]
According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, a child is killed once every two weeks from similar "tip over" accidents.
Dakota made a miraculous recovery and his mother told WAFF 48 he will start playing T-Ball in the Spring.
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