Gyeonggi Fire Department Aims to Reduce Infant and Toddler Accidents by 1% Annually... Measures Including Education Planned

The Gyeonggi-do Fire and Disaster Headquarters is aiming to reduce safety accidents involving infants and toddlers (ages 0-6) by 5% by 2028.

The Fire and Disaster Headquarters announced on the 11th that, as more than 5,000 infant and toddler accidents occur annually, they plan to reduce accidents by 1% (about 50 cases) each year and have prepared various countermeasures.

First, the headquarters will open a section on their website providing daily safety information, regularly posting statistical data on infant and toddler safety accidents and frequently occurring accident cases categorized by accident type.

Additionally, they plan to expand safety education for infants and toddlers by utilizing the Metaverse 119 Safety Experience Center, which has no spatial or temporal limitations, allowing anyone to easily receive training on fire safety, first aid, earthquakes, and more.

Furthermore, they will conduct customized education across four zones and 18 categories, including firefighter job experiences, home safety, traffic safety, and outdoor safety, tailored to life cycle characteristics by using the Children's Safety Story Village experience facility located within the Gyeonggi-do National Safety Experience Center in Osan.

The Fire and Disaster Headquarters will also dispatch private professional instructors to provide safety education at about 550 of the approximately 11,000 infant and toddler facilities.

Gyeonggi-do Fire and Disaster Headquarters

In addition, to create a safer environment for infants and toddlers, they will hold the "1st Life Safety Poster Contest" (April) and the "25th Gyeonggi-do 119 Firefighting Children's Song Contest" (May 14). The poster contest is open to elementary school students in the province, multicultural families, and children with disabilities, who can submit works on 10 life safety accident themes (excluding fire prevention), such as CPR, traffic accidents, mountain accidents, and water play.

The Fire and Disaster Headquarters will also organize an academic seminar on reducing infant and toddler safety accidents in June.

Jo Seon-ho, head of the Gyeonggi-do Fire and Disaster Headquarters, stated, "We will take the lead in creating a safe environment for raising children by implementing reduction measures based on the analysis of infant and toddler safety accidents." He added, "At home and infant facilities, please follow safety rules to protect our precious children, such as removing objects that children can climb on balconies and never leaving a child alone in a bathtub with even a low water level."

Meanwhile, an analysis of infant and toddler emergency dispatches (78,230 cases) in the province from 2021 to 2023 showed that accidents involving infants and toddlers in the Gyeonggi area totaled 4,504 cases in 2021, 5,295 in 2022, and 5,695 in 2023, totaling 15,494 cases, showing an increasing trend each year.

By type, falls were the most common with 8,681 cases, accounting for 56.1% of the total. This was followed by collisions with 3,334 cases (21.5%), foreign object insertion with 1,655 cases (10.7%), burns with 1,101 cases (7.1%), and entrapment of hands or feet with 243 cases (1.7%).

By age, 1-year-olds accounted for the highest number with 3,670 cases (23.7%). From age 2 onwards, the number of accidents gradually decreased with increasing age.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.