Nick of Time Safety Products

"Protecting Children in your home"

Newspaper Articles

Richard Pierce is hoping that the anchoring device he invented could be used to save some lives -- because he knows that when a heavy piece of furniture or television falls, it can shatter families.

In 2002, his 2-year-old son, Nicholas, was killed in their Cranford, N.J., home when a dresser accidentally fell on top of him, suffocating him.

The 35-year-old architect and former Westerleigh resident said the idea for a device to anchor furniture and televisions into the wall had been kicking around for years, but when a New Dorp toddler was killed by a falling television last month, it spurred him to finish the apparatus.

Upon hearing the news, he said "it was the worst I've had it in four years, it just put me right back there," referring to his own son's death.

"I stayed up for a couple of nights, thinking 'I gotta get this thing out there, something's gotta get done.'"

Since then, he's produced about 100 of the riggings, dubbed SecuraTV and Secura Furniture. It locks tightly into sheetrock and then into a television's cable jack, providing a tight fit to keep it from moving.

"You're not trying to hang the TV from it," he said. "You're just trying to keep it from moving. If it's moving a few inches, a foot, then momentum takes over. This is going to keep it from moving forward."

It also comes with a hooked screw, which can be used to secure furniture.

He's ordered the parts to produce another 500, and plans on charging $20 -- a little more than double the production cost -- so that he can further the patent process, develop the mechanism and market it.

But it's not about the money. He's handed out most of his first batch to friends and family.

He named the production company Nick of Time, after his son, and hopes to drum up further interest with his Web site, www.securatv.com.

While he said the contraption can withstand a few hundred pounds of pressure, televisions larger than 36 inches would probably be too heavy. And the link is only as strong as the TV's casing.

Still, plastic connections can degrade or grow brittle, and Velcro or nylon straps never seem to wrap tight enough, he said.

The only other flaw with the device is that, once inserted into the wall, it's not going to come out without a fight.

But "you can fix a hole in the wall, you can't fix a hole in your heart," he said. "A hole in the wall is nothing."

Rob Hart is a news reporter for the Advance. He can be reached at rhart@siadvance.com

SecuraTV

 

Son's tragic death spurs man to help save others

Former Staten Island resident invents device which anchors furniture and televisions into the wall

Sunday, April 30, 2006

By ROB HART

ADVANCE STAFF WRITER

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