When on vacations, millions of children sleep in hotel or motel cribs every year. But, how safe are those cribs?
NBC’s Liz Crenshaw did some digging, and she found some rooms are a recipe for disaster.
NBC reporters made reservations at five local hotels in College Park, Md., and told them they needed two cribs.
NBC checked into the rooms with Alan Korn, a safety expert with Safe Kids Worldwide.
The first room was at a Best Western. At first inspection, the cribs looked pretty good.
However, each crib mattress was covered with a folded adult sheet instead of a fitted crib sheet, which is.a strangulation and suffocation hazard. There was also a plastic mattress cover, which was torn.
Three of four mattress board safety straps were broken or not connected.
The next room was at the Comfort Inn. It came with two wooden cribs, each containing an adult sheet.
One of them was completely chipped away.
The Super 8 was next. One of the cribs had an adult sheet and a pillow. The other crib was assembled upside down so that the mattress floorboard would not stay in. Most of the hardware was damaged, which resulted in exposed screws and danger of collapsing.
The Holiday Inn had one crib that passed inspection, aside from an adult sheet. The second crib was a recalled Evenflo Happy Camper crib. It was recalled in 1997 because the hinges rotate too easily, causing the crib to collapse.
At the Hampton Inn, the two portable cribs did not have adult sheets and both looked brand-new and in very good shape.
The hotels said that the safety, comfort and well-being of their guests was of utmost importance.
They said they would remind their hotels of the importance of following safety guidelines.
Holiday Inn also noted that it disposed of the recalled crib, ordered crib sheets, and will conduct random inspections of the hotel.
The Comfort Inn and Super 8 said they will destroy the damaged cribs and are buying new replacements.
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