Oakville boy caught by garage door in critical

(Update)

Twenty-four hours after a freak accident at an Oakville home — and a 9-year old boy is still in critical condition. His hooded sweatshirt was caught up in his garage door as it was going up. Neighbours are praying he survives and they’re wondering how to make sure it never happens again.

The 9-year old boy who lives on this corner house in Oakville was playing outside with friends Monday evening. After they parted, he keyed in the code to his garage door and ducked under as it was opening.

Neighbour Lisette Stolp: “He was going under it to get into the garage door and he got hooked up and it carried him up.”

He was hooked on part of the door — possibly the handle — and carried high enough to lift him off his feet. Someone performed CPR before he was rushed to a nearby hospital, then transferred to Sick Kids in Toronto.

Friends and neighbours are emailing one another updates on his condition, praying he survives. But they can’t help thinking. Lisette said: “That’s something everybody does all the time. adults and kids, we just push the buttons on the garage door and we just go under before it even goes up.”

Modern garage doors generally have a sensor that halts them when weight is applied. But even a vocal safety advocate says the accident was virtually unpreventable.

Brian Patterson is with the Ontario Safety League: “This is unfortunately one of the horrific, freak accidents that occurs in life.”

However, the owner of a local garage door depot says there are ways to reduce risk says Gord Cushnie od Door Design Inc.: “Manufacturers would even recommend that if your handle is not necessary that you take it off for reasons that it could get caught on something.”

Helpful advice for other parents. But hindsight won’t change what happened on this street. It’s still unclear exactly how the boy became caught on the door, whether it had a safety sensor and why, if it did, it didn’t kick in.