Australian retailers Kmart and Target are making safety changes across the country after a young girl nearly lost her eye to a store’s clothing hook.
The decision comes after multiple children injured themselves by the hooks, but Cecilia Chan’s incident has become the catalyst for its shocking details.
The six-year-old suffered the horrific injury after colliding with one of the hooks while shopping with family at a Chatswood Kmart in January.
The hook, which was facing upwards, pierced the little girl’s eye socket when she lost her balance and fell onto a metal clothes rack.
Her eye has since been treated with surgery but her mother, Jill Huang, told Nine News it would never look the same.
Only a month prior, another child was impaled by a clothing hook at a Target store in Parramatta.
The stores have revealed that new safety measures will be in place by next year.
Speaking to Nine News, a spokesperson for Kmart has said the company would be putting plastic covers on all its apparel arm hooks.
“Trials have shown these to significantly reduce the risk of injury or laceration if someone accidentally hits the apparel arm,” the spokesman said.
Target is also following suit.
Ms Huang told Nine News she was happy about the changes but was still upset it was not done soon enough to prevent her daughter’s injury.
Image credit: Nine News
This article originally appeared on Over60.