2 Investigators

(CBS) There is a danger is in the aisles of many popular retail stores. Long, skinny metal hooks with sharp, pointed ends are used to hold all types of merchandise from socks to children's toys. They are typically called display hooks and they are being blamed for causing severe injuries to children from Naperville and other local communities.

"I pulled her off that hook and her face was full of blood," said a Naperville woman, who asked that her name not be used. Her 21-month-old daughter was injured at Kohl's in July 2000 while on vacation in Branford, Conn. She says her daughter leaned forward to pick up a pair of sunglasses and did not see the protruding hook.

"That hook went boom, right into her eye," the Naperville mother said. Her daughter, she said, required two surgeries.

Six months after the injury, Dr. Patricia Davis, a pediatric and neuro-ophthalmologist in Naperville, performed the second surgery.

"She still has a scar," Davis said. "She has some tearing issues in terms of not being able to get rid of the tears as easily for a while."

Two years later, Davis treated another child injured by a display hook.

"They literally had to pull him off of that hook," said Dr. Davis.

More Cases
In 2002, Lonnie Alexander, a then-18-month-old boy from Lockport, fell onto a low-hanging display hook at a Kohl's store in Lemont. The hook ripped a muscle behind his eye.

"When it happened to my son I thought it was a freak accident," his mother, Vicky Alexander, said. "I pulled him off the hook. He was just limp and bleeding from his eye, we didn't even wait for the ambulance. We drove him right to the hospital."

Alexander said she had no idea there were more children injured like her son.

"We have six muscles that control our eye movements," Dr. Davis said. "And so, one of those six was not working for him. His eye was turned completely towards his nose."

In a recent case, from October, a 5-year-old girl, Gigi Zinkel from Homer Glen was accidentally knocked into a 6-inch metal display hook at a Kohl's store in Orland Park. The hook went into her mouth above her incisor tooth.

"It hurt really badly," said Gigi. "Those hooks are dangerous, very dangerous."

"There was nothing on the hook," said Laurie Zinkel, Gigi's mother, who is angry the hooks remained on the display. "There was nothing hanging on the hook and there were several hooks all around it that were like that."

Preventable Injuries
Although these three cases occurred at Kohl's stores, there have been similar incidents at other retail operations, including drug stores. Experts say there is a way to reduce, even eliminate this danger. Kohl's was contacted for this story two weeks ago but has yet to reply with a comment.

Terry Grisim, a safety engineer and president of Safety Management Consultants, Inc., says the National Safety Council, a nonprofit business consulting organization, has outlined specific recommendations for safely using display hooks. The CBS 2/Naperville Sun investigation discovered these safety recommendations are not always practiced.

Grisim said one recommendation calls for a barrier to be placed at the end of a display hook to protect the consumer from coming into contact with the sharp edge. CBS 2/Naperville Sun found many store are using these types of hooks with plastic price scan tags covering the sharp hook. But these same stores also use the unprotected type, too. The investigation found the more dangerous, sharp-edged hooks were used on the same wall as hooks with protective barriers.

Placement of the hooks also is important, according to Grisim.

"The National Safety Council Accident Prevention Manual, that's been out for many years, actually said that you shouldn't have peg hooks any place that a customer could contact them," he said.

CBS 2/Naperville Sun found at least 55 cases of hook injuries in North America. However, Grisim says the numbers can be deceiving.

"When you're talking about customer accidents, there is no national database that collects that information," he said.

Since, there is no specific tracking of these incidents, there is no exact number of how many of these preventable injuries occur each year.

"The solution is not elaborate or extravagant. It's just a matter of using a different kind of hook," Grisim said.

Still In Use
Changing the types of hooks being used has become a mission for a Stevensville, Mich. family. Last fall, Renee Willemin and her 2-year-old son Noah were in a Michigan Rite-Aid drugstore when the boy tripped and fell.

"I realized he had injured himself and that's when I saw the hooks," said Willemin, who raced her son to the hospital.

Willemin said the hook tore through his eyelid, causing it to immediately swell shut.

"I was devastated. I couldn't see his eye," said the boy's father, Jason Willemin. "His eye was so swollen that it just disappeared like his eye was gone."

A Rite-Aid spokesperson said the company is aware of the incident and have been in contact with the family but can't talk about it because it is an ongoing investigation.

"If there's not a barrier there to keep the eye away, then they don't meet that recommendation and then they're dangerous," said Grisim, the safety engineer. "There will be eye injuries."

Dr. Davis agrees that action should be taken.

"We childproof our homes, so why can't we childproof stores?" Davis said.

Despite injuries and lawsuits, major retailers have yet to fully change to the safer hooks or even safer placement of hooks. This frustrates the Naperville mother.

"Every time I go into Kohl's department stores, those hooks are still the same way," she said.

It even concerns 5-year-old Gigi Zinkel, who worries "that another kid will get pushed or a baby, a little tiny baby," she said.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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