Hi all!

Anyone know anything about this?!!-Gary

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2002 05:59:23 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Johnny" Johnson <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [DateAbilities] Fwd: Invacare keeps wheelchair recall quiet
    (Despite fires and deaths)

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> Despite fires and deaths, Invacare keeps wheelchair recall quiet
>
> ELYRIA, OHIO, Sept. 2, 2002 -- Invacare's power wheelchairs have killed or
> burned over 30 people and yet the wheelchair giant has never bothered to
> publicize a national recall.
>
> The company settled a lawsuit in August for over $7 million "after defective
> wiring on one of its wheelchairs sparked and caught fire, badly burning a
> 65-year-old quadriplegic woman," wrote Cleveland Plain Dealer reporter Becky
> Gaylord in a copyrighted story Sept. 1. Gaylord reports that the company has
> faced numerous suits -- "including three others that involved deaths --
> linked to the chair's battery-charging system."
>
> "Although Invacare sent cards to possible customers and notified many dealers
> of the recall," Gaylord wrote, "the company never issued a press release nor
> noted the recall on its website."
>
> "We have four people here at Progress Center for Independent Living who have
> Invacare power chairs," staffer Steve Drake told disability advocates by
> email. "None of them had heard anything about a recall."
>
> The recall covers all models of Invacare power chairs built from 1985 to 2000
> -- more than 215,000 chairs in all.
>
> Since 1993, says Gaylord's story, Invacare has known about problems with the
> battery-charger wiring harness. It can short circuit, causing smoking,
> sparking and fires. Batteries and wheelchairs have reportedly melted. One
> wheelchair reportedly "burnt like a blowtorch" with a user in it.
>
> A wheelchair fire killed John Rothermel in 1994. Another fire killed Arthur
> Wilbur in Florida in July 1995. A Power 9000 wheelchair ignited and the user
> suffered second- and third-degree burns over much of his body. The charger on
> an Action Storm model "started smoking, shooting sparks and then flamed while
> the chair was being charged." Another Action Storm chair "started a fire that
> burned half of the family's garage." The owner of yet another Action Storm,
> charging the chair overnight, "awoke to a burning smell and flames coming out
> of the bottom of the wheelchair." A power chair even caught fire while in the
> shop for the upgrade as part of the recall.
>
> "Invacare engineer Ted Wakefield said 'we didn't think of it' when asked
> whether the company had considered adding the fuse to stop the short-circuits
> at the time the wiring harnesses were designed."
>
> The company has enforced confidentiality agreements keeping plaintiffs from
> talking and evidence of problems out of the public eye. "Invacare came down
> with a truck, picked up all of the evidence, including the charred
> wheelchair, and hauled it off," one man told Gaylord. And required reports to
> the Food and Drug Administration concerning defective products simply weren't
> made, said the story.
>
> Invacare, whose sales last year topped $1 billion, responded to the Plain
> Dealer story by finally issuing a press release: "Invacare has a long history
> of providing safe, effective and innovative products for people with
> disabilities," said Invacare CEO A. Malachi Mixon. "We strongly believe that
> Invacare's power wheelchairs are the best power wheelchairs in the world."
>
> Read the Plain Dealer story:
>
http://cleveland.com/printer/printer.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/bas
>
> e/business/1030872676100890.xml
>
> Visit the Invacare website:
> http://www.invacare.com
>
>
>


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