Despite a number of negative instances involving a lamp for children – including one fatality – IKEA has said it will not stop selling the product in Denmark.
The 49-kroner flower-shaped lamp, ‘Smila Blomma’, has been criticised since 2013 when a toddler was strangled after getting tangled up in the lamp’s wire. A 15-month-old baby nearly suffered the same fate but survived, and more recently, a German two-year-old was electrocuted after touching the lamp, which her parents bought from the Netherlands, and ended up in intensive care.
“We don’t have any knowledge about the specific instance in Germany, but it is very important to always read the manual that comes with the product to avoid accidents,” Metter Maria Starcke, the head of communications for IKEA Denmark, told Ekstra Bladet tabloid.
“In general you should be careful when using electricity, and we advise our customers to keep electric cords out of the reach of children.”
READ MORE: Danish government demands to know why IKEA isn’t pulling dangerous dressers
Check your lamp
According to IKEA Denmark, the lamp is still safe if you mount it according to the instructions and attach the cord and lamp to the wall using the supplied screws.
Starcke said that anyone who has a ‘Smila Blomma’ lamp should make sure it is assembled correctly.
The parents of the injured girl in Germany have hired a lawyer to look into their situation after IKEA offered them a teddy bear and 7.99 euros in compensation for the lamp.
“We haven’t heard anything more from them,” the girl’s father Pascal Hildebrandt told German tabloid Bild.
“Not anything about what was wrong with the lamp or how our daughter was suddenly in grave danger. They weren’t interested in covering our 10-euro shipping costs.”
