Finger Amputation Danger: Popular Coolers Recalled In Illinois
I've been around coolers a time or two in my life, and I've actually seen people get hurt by a cooler on more than one occasion.
Now, to be fair, I've never seen someone accidently amputate a finger with one. I've only seen people trip over them and face plant, break a toe by kicking one, or have toes broken when a cooler was dropped on their feet.
I've also seen a back injury happen when a fellow party-goer attempted to lift a very large cooler into the bed of a pickup truck. He thought the cooler was empty, or nearly empty, but it was actually full of two cases of beer and a ton of ice. Thanks to multiple visits to his chiropractor, he knows better than do that now.
I guess you could still have all these things happen to you with the recalled coolers I'm about to tell you about, but the major focus of the recall is to help customers avoid a permanently missing digit.
There Are Lots Of Different Coolers And Cooler-Makers Out There, And They Come In All Sorts Of Shapes And Sizes, But The Coolers We're Talking About Today Are Igloo Coolers
Not just any Igloo cooler is being targeted in this product recall. The one million coolers being recalled by Igloo are the 90 Quart Flip & Tow Rolling Coolers, and the recall coverage extends to all body and lid color combinations, according to the Consumer Product and Safety Commission's website (CPSC):
This recall involves Igloo 90 Qt. Flip & Tow Rolling Coolers manufactured prior to January 2024. The date of manufacture is imprinted on the bottom of the cooler in a circular pattern with an arrow pointing to the month of manufacture and the last two digits of the year of manufacture inside the circle.
Here's The Other Information You'll Need If You Discover You Have One Of These Coolers
According to the CPSC, the coolers were sold at Costco, Target, Academy and Dick’s Sporting Goods in the U.S. They were also sold online via Amazon, Igloo’s website and other online shopping spots.
There have been injuries caused by the coolers that have been reported.
To date, there have been a dozen instances of consumers sustaining fingertip injuries from the tow handles. Fingertip amputations, bone fractures and lacerations were among the reported injuries, the notice said. The timeframe during which the recalled Igloo coolers were sold spanned from January 2019 to last month.
Igloo will provide affected customers with a replacement handle at no charge. The company has set up a webpage for registrations to obtain the repair kit.
It also posted about the recall on its social media accounts.
Click here for more information.