As a mother of four – 12-year-old twins, a four-year-old, and a three-year-old – S.K. is deeply familiar with strollers.
Over the years, she has owned a number of them, including several manufactured by UPPAbaby, a brand whose products had generally made her happy. So it was “exciting,” for her, when the company recently released a jogging stroller.
S.K. jogs “here and there” with her kids, but even on her daily fast-paced walks, the new stroller promised to be better on varied terrain in the parks and trails she frequents. One day in April, she packed up her two younger children for a walk with her sister; she recalls it being only the third or fourth time she’d tried the UPPAbaby jogging stroller.
As usual, her kids alternated who was riding in the stroller and who was standing on the stroller’s riding board. At one point, her younger son was standing on the board as the group rolled through a park. Then, something unimaginable happened.
The boy’s left index finger got caught in the rear disk brake while the stroller was in motion; in an instant, his finger was amputated.
“It all happened so fast,” says S.K. “You can imagine kids pinching a finger, but to amputate a finger… that was nothing that I would ever think a stroller would be capable of doing. He was standing where he was meant to stand, and wasn’t doing anything out of the normal.”
S.K. and her sister responded quickly, calling 911 and saving the detached finger in case it could be saved. The group was rushed to a nearby hospital, where an initial reattachment surgery was conducted.
A follow-up surgery effectively saved the digit, though S.K. worries her son’s finger might not grow correctly, could have nerve damage, or other complications from the incident.
“There’s the potential there could be damage, or sensitivity to it,” she says. “That’s going to have to be figured out over time.”
In the meantime, S.K. retained Johnson//Becker, where an attorney encouraged her to take civic as well as legal action. In a conversation with an employee of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), S.K. told the story of what happened to her son, and the potential risk posed by the UPPAbaby jogging stroller.
As of September 1, UPPAbaby has recalled its All-Terrain RIDGE Jogging Strollers, a move that affects 14,400 units sold between October 2021 and August 2022. The amputation of S.K.’s son’s finger is given as the inciting incident for the recall. The news comes as a relief to her.
“I was concerned that other people are using this stroller,” she says.
Customers who own the recalled jogging stroller are instructed to immediately stop using the product and contact UPPAbaby for replacement disk brakes.
“At the end of the day, I’m just happy they were able to recognize and do something about it,” S.K. says.
Questions About an UPPAbaby Stroller Lawsuit? Contact a Johnson//Becker Lawyer for a Free Case Review.
If you or a loved one has been injured by a defective UPPAbaby stroller, you may want to speak with the lawyers at Johnson//Becker, PLLC. We are actively filing new personal injury lawsuits across the country, and you may be entitled to financial compensation.
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