April is “Window Safety” month in Iowa and a Des Moines couple is leading the effort to spread this safety message. Four-year-old Hannah Geneser died after falling from a third floor window in March of last year. Her father, Jamie Geneser, is urging parents across the state to check window screens and talk with their kids about being careful around windows. 

“For me, personally, it’s a way to kind of channel all the grief and pain that we have, that I have, and channel it in a positive manner,” he says. “It’s really a coping mechanism for myself and I just have this drive to make sure that other parents don’t have to go through what we have gone through.” The Genesers have started a non-profit foundation to spread their child safety message.

“We already have talked to several different people that have already made changes to how their home is set up, how their windows function, different guards, different precautions they’re putting in place,” Jamie Geneser says, “so we’ve had an overwhelming response to this thing that we’ve brought to people’s attention.” The Iowa House this morning (Tuesday) passed a resolution to mark Window Safety Awareness Month and Jamie Genezer was there, along with his wife, Shanda Boone.

“It’s very important for us and I’m overwhelmed,” Shanda Boone says. “I didn’t expect to be this overwhelmed with emotion, but it just means so much to us and it helps us to continue you on.” Every year, about five-thousand U.S. children are taken to emergency rooms after falling out of windows. Last year in the Des Moines area alone, five children fell out of windows in the spring and summer.

Go to www.radioiowa.com to learn more about window safety and the child safety foundation created to honor Hannah, the child who died after falling out of a window. 

(O. Kay Henderson/Radio Iowa)