Most Accidents Still Claim Minority Children

By: Nicolette L. McDavid and Mick DumkeAccidental deaths among Chicago children reached a six-year low in 1997, but minorities continue to be most at risk, The Chicago Reporter has found.

In 1997, accidents took the lives of 103 youths under 20, according to the most recent statistics from the Chicago Department of Public Health. Deaths have declined every year since 1993, when 154 children died. The previous low was 131 in 1992.

In a 1996 investigation, "Death Comes by Accident in Poor, Black Neighborhoods," the Reporter revealed that nine out of every 10 Chicago children who died in accidents between 1992 and 1994 were minorities. Since then, about 85 percent of the children who died were minorities, the Reporter’s new analysis shows. Sixty-eight percent of Chicago’s children are minorities, according to the 1990 census. African American and Latino children accounted for 668 of the 794 accidental deaths in the six-year period.

"The problem is that we haven’t done the daily thing to prevent what is killing kids and we have to do something to change that," said Teri Crawley, a registered nurse and assistant administrator for the Center for Childhood Safety at Children’s Memorial Hospital, at 707 W. Fullerton Ave. "For every toddler picking up a gun and shooting someone … there are far more kids in motor vehicle crashes, falling off their bikes with head injuries and dying in fires."

Car accidents continue to be the number one killer of children in Chicago—323 deaths since 1992. Fires killed 155 youths, 92 died from suffocation and 68 drowned. The remaining 156 causes of death included poisoning, falls and other causes.

Children under age 13 are more than three times as likely to die from accidents than from homicides. Over the period, 498 children in this age group died in accidents, compared to 200 in homicides. The number of homicides increased dramatically—to 1,181—for 13- to 19-year-olds, compared to 296 accidental deaths.

The deaths cut the deepest swath through many of the city’s poor and minority neighborhoods. West Garfield Park, a community area on the West Side, recorded 23 accidental deaths between 1992 and 1997— a rate of 25.4 deaths per 10,000 population. The area is 99.1 percent African American, with a median household income of $15,102, according to the census.

"It’s always been like that," said psychiatrist Dr. Carl Bell, president of the Community Mental Health Council, at 8704 S. Constance Ave. in the Calumet Heights neighborhood. "People who are poor do not have the same level of infrastructure as people who aren’t poor. I’m talking about things like accessibility to seat belts. You still see some people driving around in clunkers without seat belts.

"If you have the chance to buy a bicycle helmet—hell, you’re lucky to be able to buy a bicycle. Also, safety information is not as circulated in poor communities."

Still, poor whites reap the benefits of living in middle-class neighborhoods, he added. "If I’m poor and white and living around middle-class people, I’m getting the same information … . If my child falls off the swing set, he lands on a rubber mat. If a child falls in a poor black area, he hits the concrete."

"Milk Dud"
It has been two years since Matina L. Lee held her son, Darrell DeSaun Bennett, in her arms. "Milk Dud," as she affectionately called him, ran into the street and was struck by a car on May 20, 1997. The 3-year-old died instantly, becoming one of 48 Chicago children killed that year in motor vehicle accidents.

"He loved to play ball and loved to sing and dance," recalled the 24-year-old resident of the Robert Taylor Homes public housing development. "He was real smart and he picked up real quick. When he was 2 he knew how to tie his shoes. When I finished school he came to the graduation."

According to the Chicago Police Department report, a motorist was driving south on the 4700 block of South Federal Street and struck Darrell when the boy ran from behind a parked car. Lee said her friend, Shandrell Evans, was with Darrell at the time and still can’t talk about his death.

"Every time I bring up Milk Dud’s name he puts his head down, that is a conversation that he don’t want to discuss," Lee said.

After two years, Lee is still "haunted" by the incident. "I thought that it was something that I did. I dropped out of school, I lost my job and it seemed like I could not get back on track," she said.

"The only question I ask was, did he cry, did he call my name?" she asked. "I wonder what he was thinking, does he miss us? That is the question I can’t possibly know."

In a 1996 study, "Kids ’n’ Cars," researchers from Children’s Memorial Hospital, Northwestern University and Loyola University found that 91 of the 142 children studied who were struck by cars from 1989 to 1993 were unsupervised. Many were walking home from school or were on their way to other destinations, the researchers found.

According to the Reporter’s analysis, youths are most at risk between the ages of 15 and 19, when they begin to drive on their own. Between 1992 and 1997, 155 teens in this age group lost their lives in car accidents: 69 African Americans, 47 Latinos, 38 whites and one Asian American.

Teenagers believe "they are invincible, so they tend not to buckle up," said Capt. Richard W. Lambert, a 30-year veteran of the Illinois State Police. In 1983, the Illinois General Assembly passed the Child Passenger Restraint Act, which required children under 4 to be properly restrained while traveling in non-commercial vehicles.

Fourteen states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia allow police to ticket drivers they observe not wearing seat belts, according to the Washington, D.C.-based National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Officers in Illinois can issue citations only if they already have stopped drivers for other offenses, said Master Sgt. Lincoln Hampton, public information officer for the State Police.

States with the more restrictive seat belt laws are preventing motor vehicle accidents most effectively, according to a 1998 study by the Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Tougher belt legislation "is probably the biggest and single piece of legislation as far as saving lives," said Brad Fralick, executive director of the Illinois chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Such legislation was proposed earlier this year but was blocked by the Senate Rules Committee, according to Steve Brown, press secretary for Illinois House Speaker Michael J. Madigan (D-Chicago).

Patty Schuh, communications director for Senate President James "Pate" Philip (R-Wood Dale), said Philip supports the current seat belt law and that most Illinois legislators believe strict enforcement of such laws would divert police from more pressing concerns.

"The will of the majority of the General Assembly is that officers have better things to do than drive around looking for seat belt violators," Schuh said.

But even with seat belts, children can be lost. Monique Munoz, 9, was killed while sitting, belted, in the back seat of her parents’ car last Nov. 21, according to her father, Manuel Munoz Jr. The family was on its way from their home on the Southwest Side to west suburban Addison to attend an arts-and-crafts fair when a white van hit them on a ramp connecting I-94 to I-290 near Polk Street.

The driver, Rosendo Adan, was charged with reckless homicide; his criminal case is pending. The Munozes are seeking at least $50,000 in a civil lawsuit.

"I feel cheated and angry because this all could have been avoided," Munoz said. Monique "was a petite girl, active in junior scouts with Troop 202, and playing baseball and swimming," he said. Manuel and Stephanie Munoz adopted Monique four years ago after she had lived with them three years, he said. "We couldn’t have children and Monique was what we always had wanted. At noon that day [the driver] took away parts of our hearts."

Tragic Sunday
On a Sunday morning last Sept. 20, James "Archie" Hargraves II drowned off Chicago’s 71st Street beach. The 11-year-old lived with his mother, Jamet, and his grandparents, the Rev. J. Archie and Gwendolyn Hargraves. "Archie" was their only grandson.

He was "somewhat precocious. He loved music and sang with the church choir, and he loved directing the children’s choir," said Hargraves, 82, pastor of South Shore Community Church, at 7401 S. Yates Blvd.

Archie and his friend, Terrence Evans, 11, skipped church that day and went to Lake Michigan. The water was warm and calm in the inlet behind the South Shore Cultural Center. Carolyn Effgen of Oak Park was also there with her husband and children. She remembers seeing Archie and Terrence playing on the beach and then, not long after, floating in the lake on a board they had found. Meanwhile, South Shore resident Gerald Temaner was swimming nearby, and stopped to ask if they could swim.

"One of them said yes, and very nicely said ‘Thanks for asking,’" Temaner recalled. "I made an assumption about their competence. And I saw a family on shore watching them. I keep cursing myself because if any of those things weren’t there…," his voice trailed off. The boys floated farther out. Effgen tried to call them back in, she recalled, but then, one after the other, they "splashed into the water," struggled after the board, and then went under.

Effgen began yelling for help, and an off-duty police officer swam out and began diving for the boys. He found Archie and pulled him to the rocks, where his wife, a nurse, joined him in performing cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, Effgen said.

Within minutes, emergency personnel had recovered Terrence, but both boys were dead. Effgen will never forget it. "I saw their faces," she said. "I interacted in their lives, and I was probably the last person to do so. And in a matter of minutes they were gone."

Sixty-eight children drowned in Chicago between 1992 and 1997. Fifty were black, 11 were Latino and seven were white, the Reporter’s analysis shows. Drowning is a silent killer, said Julie Gilchrist, a medical epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control in Atlanta. Many people do not realize they are in trouble until it is too late, she said.

"It could have been me 70 some years earlier, [when] we slipped away to swim in the swimming hole, and my grandmother would say ‘Boy, you’re gonna get drowned,’" Hargraves recalled. "The method then was you got thrown in and struggled your way out—that was how you learned to swim. I too had to gasp for air.

"That was all with me at that time" of Archie’s death and funeral, he said. "The impact of that was pretty rough, when you least expect it. You know, I expected him to bury me, and take care of me."

Changing Behavior
Experts prefer the term "unintentional injuries" to accidental deaths, because many of these events are preventable, said Jennifer Koehn, communications coordinator for the National Safety Council in west suburban Itasca. "We hear a lot about plane accidents in the news, but we do not hear about unintentional injuries. Every six minutes there is a death and every two seconds an injury from an unintentional cause," she added. "We need to change our behavior."

Fires—a case in point—have killed 155 children over the six-year period, the Reporter found. Fire-related deaths declined from 34 in 1992 to 16 in 1997. Increased fire prevention programs are helping, said Joe J. Roccasalva, paramedic in charge at the Chicago Fire Department’s Survive Alive Center, a prevention education facility for children at 1010 S. Clinton St., on the city’s Near South Side.

The fire department emphasizes the importance of smoke detectors, encourages families to conduct fire drills at home, and has increased inspections of businesses, Roccasalva said. This year, 1,260 children visited the Survive Alive Center and another 8,100 received training at their schools, he said.

"There needs to be more public education on how to prevent and survive a fire," he said. "But public schools are only allowed one field trip a semester, and most schools do not want to come out here when they can go to The Field Museum."

For more information on accidental deaths, visit the following sites:

• Illinois State Police, Safety Messages and Programs for Children

• Chicago Fire Department's Survive Alive House Foundation

• Chicago Department of Public Health

• Mothers Against Drunk Driving

Contributing: Rui Kaneya and Brian J. Rogal. Ty Adams, Dwayne Ervin, George Pence, Chanel Polk, Andrew Haas-Roche, Michael A. Rohner and Eleanor LeShore Smith helped research this article.