According to a recent complaint, an 80-year-old woman passed away a month after her Sleep Number Bed unexpectedly moved and imprisoned her against a wall for two days last year.
According to a complaint filed on Tuesday by her daughter, Angela Moan, Rosalind Walker became imprisoned on March 1, 2023, when her Sleep Number Bed, which had its adjustable base at a higher position, suddenly descended and trapped her between the bed and the wall of her bedroom.
According to the lawsuit, Walker was trapped and unable to release herself when the bed abruptly dropped with such force.
She stayed trapped in that position in her Godfrey, Illinois, bedroom until emergency responders eventually freed her on March 3, 2023.
According to the complaint, she was brought home on hospice after being taken to a hospital and then sent to a rehabilitation facility.
According to the suit, she endured suffering until her death on April 3, 2023.
Her daughter filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Sleep Number Corporation and Leggett & Platt Incorporated in St. Louis County, Missouri. The companies were responsible for designing, producing, marketing, selling, and providing a warranty for the bed.
On October 19, 2014, Walker bought the Sleep Number Bed in Brentwood, Missouri, which came with a 25-year warranty. Later, that bed was delivered to Walker’s Godfrey residence.
According to the complaint, the defendants failed to have an audible warning system to warn that the bed was deteriorating, sold the bed without proper instructions or warning language that a person could become trapped between the bed and a wall, and lacked “an appropriate release mechanism that would have allowed Walker to free herself.”
According to the complaint, Sleep Number Corporation bears strict liability for Mrs. Walker’s injuries, suffering, and demise. Due to flaws in its design and lack of warning, the Sleep Number Bed was unsafe and unreasonable.
Moan is claiming strict responsibility, negligence, wrongful death, and breach of promise against Sleep Number and Leggett & Platt Inc. The lawsuit asks for damages for Walker’s injuries, suffering, and death as well as for associated medical expenses and “for the loss of her mother’s society.”
It is requesting compensation in excess of the $25,000 jurisdictional cap.
Leggett & Platt Inc. and Sleep Number did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment Thursday afternoon.
As elevators have sensors to keep closing force low to minimize injury, so too should the bed’s makers have stronger systems in place to prevent entrapment, Ted Gianaris, Moan’s lawyer, told NBC News Thursday.
He claimed that although this bed is designed to have a timer that allows it to lower itself, it lacks an alert, a sensor, and a release.
The passing of a lively, self-sufficient woman is heartbreaking. Mrs. Walker died after being confined for two days. Gianaris stated that something as commonplace as an adjustable bed shouldn’t be a trap. “We are eager to learn from the companies why they chose not to market a safer bed.
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