The heartbreaking cause of most childhood deaths

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No parent ever wants to consider that their child may pass away, but the unfortunate reality is that this does happen every day in the United States. Children face a lot of risks and many injuries become fatal. You cannot put a number on the loss this represents for the parents.

The first step to preventing these deaths is to understand why they happen. To start, you need to know that the top cause of death for children is simple: accidental injury.

Other top causes

Before moving forward, let's take a look at some of the other leading causes. They include things like congenital anomalies, heart disease, malignant neoplasms, pneumonia and influenza. These are serious issues, but none of them pose the same type of risk as accidental injuries. Parents who worry about sickness and disease also need to put some of that energy into considering how injuries take place and what they can do.

Is it a wrongful death?

What parents may wonder after the fact is if the accidental injury should be considered a wrongful death. This means that someone, other than the child, carries at least a portion of the blame. Examples may include:

• The child passes away after a car accident. Another driver caused that accident, not one of the child's parents. The cause of death gets listed as accidental injury, and that's accurate, but it is clear that the third party caused those injuries through their own carelessness or negligence.
• The child passes away from injuries sustained in a hotel pool. It turns out that the pool room should have automatically locked since there was no lifeguard on duty, but it did not. The pool was an attractive nuisance to the child and led to the accidental drowning.
• The child passes away from complications following a routine surgery. One of the medical professionals made a serious mistake, known as a "never event." The child deserved a higher standard of care.
• The child passes away after using a faulty product, which malfunctions and injures them. The child used the product properly, but a design flaw or manufacturing flaw caused those fatal injuries.

These are just a few examples, but you can see how many different types of events can fall into this overall category of accidental injuries for the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). Parents have to understand all of these various risks.

Parents' rights

Again, you can't put a number on this type of loss, but parents do still have to consider medical bills, funeral costs and much more. As such, they need to know if they have a right to compensation after the tragic incident in New Jersey.