Prevention of fatal accidents should be our quest

When an accident sweeps away the life of a child or, even worse, when there are several taken at the same time, the earth shakes. Instead of being buried in rubble, those left behind are covered with sorrow and crushed with guilt.

The parents have lost their baby or their laughing and smiling preschooler. We cry for them. Then there is the second outcry of "Why did it happen?" or a judging "Why did they let it happen?" Accidents happen, we say. Accidents shouldn't happen, we shout. There are acts of God, we answer; there are errors of men, we respond.

Meanwhile, we look on as a community, with both tears and fire in our eyes. The scene is so painful we just don't want it to happen again to any child or to any family. Every accident has a root cause. It happens because a series of events line up in a row escaping all of the safeguards in place to prevent it. For most, the ultimate barrier to a fatal accident is the parent, but a parent cannot and, it could be said, should not be at the side of a child every moment, awake or asleep.

But even with this parental armor, there are still accidents. Children drown in pools; children are struck down or run over by their own parents or neighbors; they fall; they crash; they wander off; they are poisoned by fumes intended for vermin. What about these parents? Are they less worthy to be called a caring mother or father? No, and yet the children will have died in vain unless the rest of us learn a lesson that only the power of death can teach.

We all have children or are around children, therefore we must think about the different protections between the child and the accident. If there is a pool, is there a fence? How easy is it to enter the gate? Are there other protective steps built in? Are weapons stored properly? Where is the ammunition? Gun control should be gun safety and injury prevention.

Our homes are virtual toxic waste dumps with the number of cleaning products, fuel and organic compounds, even without buying agents whose sole purpose is to kill. Fumes from gas leaks, radon rays, paints and solvents are silent stalkers of children, yet there are instructions that too often we ignore. We don't read them or don't follow them. Sometimes we are alarm-overloaded. It seems everything carries a warning label, so soon we stop thinking — because all things are dangerous, therefore nothing is.