Child-proof lock

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33153, 17 February 1973, Page 1

Child-proof lock

A Christchurch company is shortly to begin selling world - wide, a child-proof lock for medicine cabinets and other cupboards in the home where poisonous substances are stored.

Mr A. Quinn, a technician at the Christchurch Technical Institute, spent two and a half years perfecting the lock. He said yesterday at a demonstration for Health Department officials and others interested that no child under five could work the lock, which will sell for $1.50 in New Zealand. As can be seen in the photograph a child’s fingers are too short to reach the flap which trips the lock on the inside of the door. The hole in the cupboard is just the right distance from the flap to stop objects being poked down to the flap and a strong spring prevents the use of something like a bent wire to work it. Jason Howell, of Burwood, aged two and a half, is the child demonstrating the lock.

Mr Quinn said the lock would prevent children up to eight or nine years getting into a cupboard—the height of the flap is adjustable. A company has been formed to market the lock —called a “Lifelock” in New Zealand and overseas. Mrs K. Tapara, a member of the North Canterbury Hospital Board who carried out an investigation into how children came to be poisoned, said at the demonstration yesterday that she fully endorsed the lock. Last year in Christchurch 600 children were treated for poisoning at hospitals run by the North Canterbury Hospital Board. Household cleaning substances and medicines formed the bulk of poisoning cases.