2.9K views Apr 2009
A news report follows David Snow's campaign to ban lawn darts after one killed his daughter, and explains why the dangerous game remains sold in Canada.
0:00 It's a popular game. Many of us have a set of these darts lying around the garage or maybe at the cottage. 0:06 You can buy lawn darts in stores across Canada, but in the United States they're considered dangerous, and they've been taken off the shelves. 0:13 That's because of a new US law, the result of one man's promise to his little girl. 0:22 It looks like a harmless summer game, tossing oversized darts, trying to hit the bullseye. 0:29 But the heavily weighted tips can turn these darts into dangerous projectiles. 0:35 The consequences can be deadly. 0:40 She was really my dream come true. She was smart, she was pretty, my only little girl, my youngest child, and really the joy of my life. 0:50 For David Snow, the grief is unsparing. The ache of losing a child will never go away. 0:57 You know, the death of a child is something that just sort of, um, rips your soul right out of you and just takes the flavor of life away. 1:05 It does. It hurts forever. It hurts till the day you die. 1:10 Michelle Snow of Riverside, California, the 7-year-old girl so adored by her father. 1:17 She was killed by a lawn dart. 1:19 That's your favorite puppy? 1:20 No. 1:21 Huh? 1:22 Yeah. 1:23 Two years ago this week, David Snow got out his video camera. 1:27 The family dog had just had a litter of puppies. Michelle picked out her favorite and gave it a name. 1:33 Oh, look at ours. Hello, my name is Muffy, Muffy Louisa. 1:39 Oh my God. 1:40 This was Michelle's last happy day. A few hours after these pictures were taken, Michelle Snow was struck in the head by a lawn dart. 1:49 3 days later, she was dead. 1:52 The accident that killed Michelle started out as an innocent child's game. 1:56 Some children found some lawn darts in the garage and were tossing them around out here in the backyard. 2:02 Michelle was playing alone in the front yard. Well, one of the lawn darts was thrown with a little too much force. 2:08 It sailed over the fence and pierced Michelle's skull. 2:13 When we went to the hospital, uh, after about 10 minutes, they took my wife and I out of the waiting room and herded us into a little room, and I knew 2:24 that we're in big trouble, and a priest or a minister came in after that. 2:29 And, um, 2:32 I'm sorry, it just hurts to think about. I remember that when that door opened and I saw the priest standing there. 2:38 You knew. 2:38 I knew. 2:40 I knew that my little girl wasn't going to be coming home. 2:44 Michelle died because the dart struck a main artery. She hemorrhaged to death. 2:49 For 6 weeks, David Snow sat in a chair, paralyzed by his sorrow. 2:54 That turned to anger and a fierce desire to get rid of the product that killed his daughter. 3:00 I was feeling everything, you know, the grief and the anger and the... 3:06 I... 3:09 I stood over my little girl's grave, 3:12 and I actually promised her, I made a promise to her that the, that the toy that took her life would never take another child's life, 3:25 and she knows that that her dad always kept his promises. So then I came home from the cemetery, and I went to work. 3:35 Snow started a full-time one-man campaign. He quit his job as a production manager at an aerospace plant to devote all his energies to getting lawn darts off the market. 3:47 His first stop was the nation's capital, Washington, D.C. 3:52 David Snow is a determined fighter. He vowed to get lawn darts banned, and he did, almost single-handedly. 3:58 Here in Washington, he stalked the hallways of Capitol Hill. 4:02 He barged into senators' offices and stopped congressmen in the corridors. 4:06 In fact, he talked to just about anybody who'd listen to him and told him that lawn darts were dangerous and should be taken off the market. 4:14 Snow appeared before the Consumer Product Safety Commission. 4:18 He was told there had been less than 2 dozen injuries reported. 4:21 He urged them to check their figures again. They did, and this is what they discovered. 4:27 Over a 10-year period, hospitals in the United States treated 6,700 people for lawn dart injuries. 4:35 More than 75% of those injuries were to children. 3 of the children died from their injuries. 4:42 Research by the Commission also showed that a lawn dart tossed a short distance landed with a force of 23,000 pounds per square inch, a force that can easily penetrate the skull of a young child. 4:56 This boy was lucky. He survived. David Snow pushed on, and he got noticed. 5:03 His fights and frustrations made headlines. He attracted national television coverage. 5:09 Capitol Hill had never seen anyone like him before. 5:12 Finally, after several months of lobbying, his plea struck a chord with Congress. 5:18 Last fall, they passed a law banning the sale of lawn darts. 5:24 That very week, yet another accident underscored the importance of the new law. 5:29 11-year-old Amy Herron of Tennessee was rushed to hospital when a lawn dart pierced her skull. 5:36 Amy Herron is fortunate. After more than a week in a coma, she recovered from her injuries. 5:43 One of the commissioners of the US Consumer Product Safety Commission is Anne Graham. 5:49 She says if it weren't for David Snow, lawn darts would still be sold in the United States. 5:54 He decided he simply wasn't going to take no for an answer and, uh, proceeded to to try every tactic in the book to get somebody to pay attention, and he got my attention, and I thought he had a valid point. 6:05 So he he spent, he literally spent a year and a half of his life trying to get lawn darts banned because of his concern for other children, and I I think it's quite remarkable. 6:15 It's a bittersweet victory for me. Um, it's not going to bring my daughter back, but at least I know that I would have, I have done two things. 6:26 One, and most important to me, is I fulfilled a promise that I made to my daughter. 6:31 And two, at least I know that we won't have any more children killed. 6:35 We won't have, um, uh, 700 to 1,000 other children screaming in hospital emergency rooms in the United States because of lawn dart injuries. 6:46 The lawn dart problem may be solved in the US, but here in Canada, it's a different story. 6:51 You can buy lawn darts at department stores and sporting goods outlets across the country, and that's not about to change. 6:57 The government could ban lawn darts if the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs said they were dangerous, but so far that's not in the works. 7:05 The reason? Well, Consumer and Corporate Affairs says it has no record of any Canadians being injured by a lawn dart. 7:12 They're heavy, potentially lethal weapons. 7:15 Dr. Richard Stanwick is the head of the Canadian Pediatric Society's Safety Committee. 7:20 He raised the lawn dart issue with Consumer and Corporate Affairs last fall, but he was told that without Canadian injuries, Ottawa would not invoke a ban like the US. 7:30 I think that, one of the major concerns is that the, the Americans do have a much more sophisticated data collection system. 7:37 If we want to go into the waiting room over there. 7:40 Ottawa monitors only 5 hospitals across the country. If none of those 5 hospitals reports a Londart injury, or no one else writes in to report an injury, then Londarts are considered to be accident free. 7:54 Richard Stanwyck is now asking pediatricians to send him reports of any Lendard injuries so he can forward them to Ottawa. 8:02 What is your gut feeling about the number of accidents occurring in Canada? 8:06 Well, what we usually do is take the American statistics and divide them by 10, and very often that's a close estimate of what's, what's happening in Canada. 8:14 We are probably experiencing, um, the same relative frequency of injuries per capita, and again, if the Americans see fit to ban these, I don't see why we don't move forward. 8:26 Here's one Canadian Consumer and Corporate Affairs doesn't know about, Dominic Piché of Verdun, Quebec. 8:33 Dominic is an 18-year-old student. 8 years ago, he was visiting this campground with his parents. 8:39 While his parents were off at another part of the park, Dominic and a friend got some lawn darts and started tossing them around. 8:46 We were throwing darts, and mine went to the wood around there, so I started walking and get it, and my friend con- him continued throwing his long darts, and when I went to get it, 9:00 I felt, uh, something hurt me on the head. 9:05 Dominic ended up here at the Hospital Notre Dame in Montreal. 9:09 He was placed under the care of neurologist Dr. Gerard Moore. 9:13 Dr. Moore explains exactly what happened to Dominic when the dart hit his head. 9:18 It went approximately this direction and pierced through the, uh, skull, through the meninges, and, uh, penetrated into the brain substance approximately an inch and a half, uh, in depth. 9:34 The injury provoked serious bleeding and a blood clot. You can see it here on this X-ray. 9:40 10-year-old Dominic spent more than a week in hospital with partial paralysis on his left side. 9:46 I had difficulty moving my hand, my hand. I couldn't open my hand by myself. 9:51 I had, I could open by myself, but it took time. Like I was going like this, and finally I could open. 9:57 How long did that last? 9:59 Maybe three. 10:00 Three weeks, uh. 10:01 The blood clot on his brain dissolved on its own. He suffered no lasting effects from his injury, and Dr. 10:07 Moore says he's very fortunate. 10:10 Was Dominic lucky? Could his injuries have been much worse? 10:13 I think he was extremely lucky. He was, uh, it could have hit, uh, some other areas of the brain, particularly a few centimeters more to the midline. 10:24 He would have hit a big vein, and that could have provoked a dramatic, uh, bleeding with, uh, much more, uh, rapid, uh, deterioration and, uh, and, uh, even possible fatal consequent- consequences. 10:38 He could have died. 10:40 Definitely, yes. 10:42 Both Dominic and Dr. Moore say lawn darts should be banned in Canada. 10:46 I'm definitely, uh, convinced that these, uh, kinds of, uh, games should be, uh, uh, forbidden. 10:56 David Snow has taken his fight across the border to Canada. He's called officials at Consumer and Corporate Affairs, urging them to ban lawn darts. 11:06 What do you think of the response of the Canadian officials? 11:10 A little disappointing. I wish they'd really been more on the ball on this problem. 11:15 Just because you cross the border doesn't mean that a child is any less susceptible to lawn dart injuries. 11:21 We wanted someone from the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs to appear on this broadcast to discuss the lawn dart issue, but no one would agree to go on camera. 11:31 Instead, we received a letter from Jean Guerrier P, the director of the Product Safety Branch. 11:36 He said the department will be monitoring the safety of lawn darts closely, and he says the problems with lawn darts can best be approached through information programs. 11:46 For example, the department plans to issue an information bulletin later this month, warning parents to keep lawn darts away from children. 11:55 And this is another information program that Gariope points to, a voluntary warning on the side of boxes which says that lawn darts should not be used by children. 12:05 That warning has appeared on lawn dart boxes in the United States since 1970, and there were still almost 700 injuries a year, most of them to children. 12:16 Lawn darts could have 12:17 Anne Graham from the US Consumer Product Safety Commission is diplomatic when asked if Canada should follow the American example and ban lawn darts. 12:26 I think there's a lot of evidence that that makes banning lawn darts very valid. 12:30 I I think there are numerous substitutes to lawn darts, and the problem with them is, is, is that when they kill, they kill children for the most part. 12:38 It's, children don't know how to use them, they're not safe for children to use them, and I, quite frankly, am very glad they're off the market here. 12:46 But David Snow is not concerned about being diplomatic. Memories of Michelle are everywhere. 12:53 Her favorite puppy from the litter still plays around the yard. 12:57 He says lawn darts should be banned everywhere now. 13:02 It 13:04 destroyed my daughter's life, took her life away from her, and other children too. 13:12 So I say no more. 13:16 Whether in the United States, whether in Canada or wherever, no more. 13:21 If you know of anyone 
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