Peloton’s Tread + treadmill.
Photographer: Adam Glanzman / Bloomberg
Photographer: Adam Glanzman / Bloomberg
Peloton Interactive Inc. Thursday issued a safety warning after learning of the death of a child as a result of an accident involving his Tread + plow. A recent Tread + incident recently seriously injured another child.
CEO John Foley made the announcement in a message to some customers and to the company website. “I’m reaching out to you today because I recently learned about a terrible accident involving a child and the Tread +, which inevitably resulted in death,” he wrote. . “While we are aware of very few incidents involving the Tread + where children have been injured, all of them are devastating to us all at Peloton, and our hearts go out to the families involved. ”
Peloton shares fell about 5% in New York trading on Thursday, leaving the stock down more than 30% this year. In an interview with Bloomberg TV on Wednesday, Foley said “there is a future of fitness at home ”and the company’s sailing market is 200 million athletes. This event may be a question mark over this value proposition.
This is the second known safety event in which a child entered for Peloton’s Tread + this year. A report submitted in February by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said a 3-year-old boy suffered a “major brain injury” after being trapped under the equipment. After being found by his father, the child was found to have tread marks on his back matching treadmill slats, neck injuries, and petechiae on his face, possibly from a blood flow occlusion, ”according to an report.
On March 17, the report was updated with a note from Peloton stating that the company had been informed by a member that “the child was expected to recover in full.” Peloton said this was a separate incident from the one that led to the child’s death.
In his letter, Foley said Peloton builds all its products with safety in mind, but told Tread + users that children and pets should be kept away from the equipment at all times and store the Tread + safety key away from children when unused. “We are currently evaluating ways to reinforce our warnings about these vital safety measures in the hope of preventing accidents in the future,” he said.
U.S. hospital emergency rooms were handling 68,296 injuries related to exercise equipment in 2019, according to the CPSC’s online database. In October 2020, a 42-year-old man reported a pedal on a Peloton bike going off when in use, but he did not seek first aid. Peloton issued a voluntary recall on that part, according to another CPSC Report.
Photographer: Michael Nagle / Bloomberg
The use of Peloton bikes and treadmills has intensified over the past year with people trying to be active at home while gyms were closing due to Covid-19 pandemic. In his email to Tread + users, Foley said that safety measures need to be taken “especially true during what I hope the last piece of the pandemic where everyone is still at home. ”
“There are no words to express everyone’s panic and nostalgia at Peloton feeling as a result of this tragic accident, ”a Peloton spokesman said in a statement. “In terms of family respect and confidentiality, we will not share further information.”
(Updates with the second event in the first paragraph.)