Household Cooking Range Tipover Accident Reconstruction Case Study

Abstract

A safety engineering accident investigation was conducted to analyze the circumstances surrounding an unwitnessed household child fatality allegedly associated with a cookingrange tipover. An accident reconstruction utilizing child dummies was performed to address various cookingrange tipover scenarios. Unlike previous research, the present test program uses a novel approach with an actual cooking range to evaluate child interaction during a tipover scenario. Results of the accident reconstruction case study indicate that the child’s death is inconsistent with a cookingrange tipover event. The results presented in this paper make a significant contribution to the technical literature concerning the safety analysis of cookingrange tipover events involving children through the utilization of child dummies. Caution should be used to generalize the results presented in this case study to the entire population, because any similar future situation must be analyzed on a casebycase basis.