Martin Doors - Martin Doors

A free falling garage door can be very dangerous. It is a danger that a new standardized Martin Door safety device will address.

Martin is introducing a new safety device that will resolve the potential dangers of a free falling door that could result from a relaxed spring, a broken spring or broken lift cables. The device is called the Controlled Descent Device.™

A free-falling door poses a real danger, especially to children. Here a child's trike is shown after a free-falling door smashed it in a staged demonstration.

Effective on June 3, Martin residential doors will be equipped with a CDD. Short time later, most commercial doors will also have the device.

The dangers of a falling door are easily illustrated by several tragedies, which occurred in the U.S. within the past five years.

For example: On Thanksgiving Day in 2005 (Nov. 24) a four-year-old Florida boy was playing under a 10' x 7' garage door at his grandparents' home. The door became dislodged and fell striking the child on the head. The child died as a result of the accident minutes later in the emergency room of the hospital in Fort Myers.

The identity of the child and his grandparents has been crossed off a report provided by the Office of the District Medical Examiner, but the grim details of the accident are detailed in a 32-page report obtained by Martin Door Manufacturing.

That report includes some of the following:

---the dangerous situation had manifest itself before the tragedy, according to the report. During one incident in 2005 the door fell, breaking one of the cables and "nearly struck the homeowner in an unspecified manner." A PVC pipe was then used to keep it open.

---an attempt to repair the door two days prior to the accident also was put aside, when the installer could not conduct repairs due to the amount of stuff in the garage.

The tragedy is not an isolated incident. A CPSC report detailing accidents and close calls with falling garage doors since 2002 also contains details of the following incidents:

--a two-year-old girl was killed in Prince Georges County Maryland after being struck in the head by a falling garage door.

--an infant, 13 months of age, was killed in Pipersville, PA. when a garage door fell, hitting him on the back of the head. He died from the injury.

--an Upper Marlboro, Maryland youth thought the red and white cord on a garage door looked like a jump rope and pulled it, causing the garage door to free fall on his brother. His brother died as a result of the accident. The youth accessed the cord by standing on a sofa.

The safety group's report also details a number of smaller injuries or close calls that resulted from a free-falling door. The report is eight pages long.

"Our CDD is the ultimate safety device for a garage door" according to Dave Martin, Chairman of Martin Door. Martin said the device gives the owner a lifetime of protection.

The device has the most value on a door with an opener. Pulling on the cord to release the door from the opener during a power failure, etc, may surprise the owner as the door starts to fall. The CDD will instantly stop the door.

The Controlled Descent Device™ is one of over 20 safety features that are standard options on every Martin Garage Door. Martin Door has been a leader in the industry. One official from the Consumer Product Safety Commission suggests that Martin Doors "are built to a higher standard."

The CPSC numbers show that up to 20,000 people are injured or killed in garage door accidents annually in the U.S. Approximately one third of those victims are children. This data is collected through the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS), a 100 U.S. hospital sampling.

For more information on the Martin Controlled Descent device or how to obtain an upgrade kit, available for many older torsion spring doors, call 1-800-388-9310 or (801) 973-9310.