Special Reports

CHICAGO (CBS 2) ― A Lake County boy saved his younger brother and is being called a hero. The rescue happened in a play room that had been child-proofed. What went wrong has their parents demanding a federal investigation.

CBS 2 Investigator Dave Savini has a warning about safety devices. A word of caution -- some video is sensitive.

It was a race of a different kind that changed these boys -- a race against time by 5-year-old Tyler to save his younger brother from strangling.

"Tyler is my hero," little Trevor said.

Tyler saved Trevor from a hanging hazard in a room their parents had safety proofed.

"They were in their playroom. I had it in their playroom," said the boys' mother, Connie Warnke.

Connie Warnke used a safety device -- a cord wind-up -- to stash away all their Miniblind cords. The point was to protect the boys from strangling.

But there are complaints the device creates a loop and looks like a toy attracting children to it. Others argue it needs a warning -- you have to rewind the cord each time you open and close the blinds to keep them out of the reach of children.

Trevor was able to get to the wind-up by climbing on a couch.

"He was on the couch then he hooked this on his neck," Tyler said.

Then he stepped off the couch and was hanging from the cord. That's when Tyler lifted him to safety.

"If Tyler was not in that room, Trevor never would have made it," Warnke said.

A re-enactment was done for a consumer product safety commission investigator. A federal safety review on this cord wind-up made by Safety 1st is underway.

A company spokesperson says they where unaware of the investigation and have no other complaints.

"We thought we took all the necessary steps we had to make our house safe and its obviously not," said the boys' father, Shawn Warnke.

Child safety advocates say cord wind-ups and other cord safety devices do not mean parents can let down their guard. As long as there is a cord, there is an element of danger.

"I was gone for a split second. It happened within seconds," Connie Warnke said.

It happened that fast in another case. A Nebraska boy was injured by cords that had a different safety system -- one that comes from the trade group for the window covering industry. The device separates the cords and adds tassels to prevent the forming of a loop.

His mother was making a video in the back of the room when her son is caught in tangled cords.

She dropped the camera and the boy's father performed CPR, saving him.

"It's really a false sense of security," said Nancy Cowles, who heads Kids in Danger, a nonprofit group that works on child product safety issues.

"There's from what I've seen no evidence that it would work consistently enough or even all the time so that a parent could trust it," Cowles said.

"I'm angry. I'm upset. I'm hurt. I'm everything," Connie Warnke said, but she is also thankful her family escaped tragedy and thankful for a child she calls a hero.

The National Window Covering Safety Council, an industry trade group, recommends using cordless blinds. But for those retrofitting, make sure children can not reach the cords.

In the case of cord wind-ups, other companies make them and have had problems. In one case, a little girl wrapped in a cord was saved by her mother.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission is not commenting on its investigation.

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