A child died as the result of a recent incident related to Peloton’s Tread+ product, according to a letter from CEO John Foley posted on the company’s website. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) posted on its Twitter page that it is investigating the incident.
In a separate incident on Feb. 3, a three-year-old boy was injured on a Tread+, according to a report by SaferProducts.gov — a database run by the CPSC.
“While we are aware of only a small handful of incidents involving the Tread+ where children have been hurt, each one is devastating to all of us at Peloton, and our hearts go out to the families involved,” the letter stated.
The company does not plan to release more details about any of the incidents “out of respect for these families and their privacy,” according to the letter.
However, the CPSC report detailing the Feb. 3 incident involving the three-year-old boy said he “was trapped under a Peloton Tread Plus, found by his father to be not breathing and pulseless - he was resuscitated and now has significant brain injury. He was found to have tread marks on his back matching the slats of the treadmill, neck injury, and petechiae on his face, presumably from occlusion of blood flow.” (Petechiae is tiny purple, red or brown spots on the skin caused by bleeding under the skin.)
A Peloton spokesperson told NBC News that the three-year-old child is “expected to make a full recovery."
As part of its Twitter post, the CPSC stated that in 2019, U.S. emergency departments treated an estimated 22,500 treadmill-related injuries, about 2,000 of which were to children under eight years old. Between 2018 and 2020, 17 treadmill-related fatalities were reported to the CPSC, one of which was a five-year-old child.
Foley, who co-founded Peloton, asked users to ensure they review the safety warnings and instructions on its products, including those that state children and pets should be kept away from Peloton equipment at all times and those that state that the Tread+ safety key be removed and stored out of reach of children when not in use.
“We are always looking for new ways to ensure that you have the best experience with our products, and we are currently assessing ways to reinforce our warnings about these critical safety precautions to hopefully prevent future accidents,” the letter states.