7.5 Million Toys Meant for Young Kids Recalled After Series of 'Impalement Injuries, Lacerations and Puncture Wounds'
If I were a manufacturer of toys for children, I’m pretty sure I’d set a safety standard somewhere north of “our products must not put children at risk of impalement.”
I, however, do not work for ZURU Toys.
That company has recalled roughly 7.5 million Baby Shark and Mini Baby Shark bath toys after reports of injuries to 12 children, three-quarters of which were serious enough to require a doctor’s care.
“Zuru is aware of 12 reports of children falling or sitting onto the recalled full-size Baby Shark bath toy, resulting in impalement injuries, lacerations and puncture wounds, including to children’s genital, anorectal and facial areas,” the Consumer Product Safety Commission said in a recall notice posted Thursday to its website.
“Nine of the incidents required stitches or medical attention,” the site said.
Twelve out of 6.5 million sold indicates an incident rate of approximately 0.00018 percent.
The other million products recalled were Mini Baby Shark toys.
Though the company said it wasn’t aware of any problems with the Mini Baby Shark bath toys, it recalled them anyway, evidently out of an abundance of caution.
The website also includes detailed descriptions of the affected products.
Zuru offered a refund of $14 for the larger toy and $6 for each Mini Baby Shark, payable in the form of a digital Mastercard, for consumers who follow the recall instructions on the site and upload a picture of “disabled” product for verification.
The Chinese-manufactured toys have been on the market since 2019 and were apparently sold widely — CPSC lists “Walmart, CVS Pharmacy, Dollar General Corp., Family Dollar Services, HEB Grocery Company, Meijer, Target, TJX Companies, Ross, and Walgreens stores” as outlets for the products, in addition to the usual online retailers.
“ZURU Toys is one of the largest toy companies in the world, known for its innovation, creativity and disruption through automation,” according to the company website.
“Inspired by kids and imaginative play, ZURU Toys distributes to all major retailers in over 120 countries and has delighted millions of families all over the world with brands such as Bunch O Balloons™, X-Shot™, Rainbocorns™, Robo Alive™, Smashers™, 5 Surprise™ and Pets Alive™ and partnerships with entertainment properties, including Nickelodeon, Disney, Universal Studios and DreamWorks.”
In addition to its toy division, ZURU also operates ZURU Edge, a consumer goods company that produces care products for personal, home and pet use.
The company also operates in the construction industry, producing building information modeling software that creates three-dimensional images of proposed building projects to automate portions of the construction process.
“Ten years in the making, ZURU Tech has reinvented every aspect of the construction process, developing the world’s first BIM software that directly connects to fully automated production,” the company’s website claims.
No other ZURU products were listed as recalled by the CPSC website.
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