As a parent, there are few things more frightening than when your child begins to choke. It can happen in an instant, and if we don’t move fast enough, the consequences can be devastating. Jordan Flom and his wife, Rachel, were driving with their four young children, including 1-year-old triplets, when something scary happened. Jordan shared the story on Facebook, hoping to warn other parents about a potentially dangerous toy.
“We almost lost one of the boys tonight! Locklan was playing with this toy in the car and somehow got the suction cup off and choked on it. We were driving and luckily God helped me notice a weird noise he was making. We slammed on the brakes, grabbed him out of his car seat, and I hit his back until he threw it up,” the dad wrote on Facebook. “We are so grateful we were not listening to loud music or anything because we legit could have lost him if we didn’t notice right away. We share this as a reminder to remember most toys can be pulled apart, and make sure to have a camera or mirror to see [your] kids at all times.”
Jordan’s post now has more than 14,000 shares, 36,000 reactions, and 5,400 comments. He has 4.5 million followers on Facebook, so his large platform reached a lot of parents.
Many thanked him for the warning. “Thank God he’s ok! Thank you for sharing, we just bought this toy yesterday, definitely getting rid of it now,” one parent shared.
Jordan recalled the scary day in an interview with Newsweek. “I started to notice a [weird] noise coming from him,” the dad shared. “It was almost like trying to clear his throat.”
He said he looked in a dash cam that shows the kids’ rear-facing car seats and realized Locklan was choking. Rachel unbuckled her seat belt and climbed into the back, confirming their worst fears. Locklan desperately needed help.
Jordan told Newsweek he threw the car in park and immediately grabbed his son. He pounded on his son’s back until Locklan released a piece of the Xonteus Telescopic Suction Cup Giraffe Toy, sold by Amazon.
He told the magazine that the number of people in his comments who had the same toy surprised him.
“I think a lot of people buy that toy for little kids because it entertains them [and] it goes against the window, but they love to chew on that soft material, so that can come off,” Jordan added. “We’ll never play with that one again.”
Newsweek reached out to Amazon regarding the toy and received a promising response.
“Product safety is our top priority. We develop innovative tools to prevent unsafe products from being listed in our store, including robust seller vetting programs and advanced machine learning detection combined with expert human investigators,” a statement explained.
“We continuously monitor our store, and if we discover a product was undetected by our proactive tools, we address the issue immediately, including the removal of unsafe or noncompliant products and outreach to sellers and manufactures for additional information,” the statement added. “The product in question has been removed while we further investigate its safety and compliance.”
