Warning about decorative spider webs

This post came just to me through one of my homeschooling emails from out of state. It is worth passing on at this time of year. I am leaving out personal names:


...we had pretend spider web draped along our banister upstairs. (It is the web that you can buy at Wal-Mart or Target with the little spider inside. It has the perception of being cotton-like however when pulled together, itbecomes like a very strong nylon rope). _____, being a typical kid, started at one end of the web and wrapped it around himself. He rolled his body as the web came off the banister. The web wrapped around his neck. With God's good grace, I happened to have looked up from downstairs. ____ could not speak. His face was already changing colors from lack of oxygen. I ran upstairs to try to pull it off. The web would not budge. I screamed for my husband to come up. He could not get the web to break loose either. He finally did pull the web with great force just barely enough so ____ could get a breath. I ran to get the scissors to cut it off. It was so tight that I could not get the scissors between the web and his neck. Finally, we did cut the web loose. His neck obviously suffered trauma but he is okay physically. He was frightened horribly. I cannot shake the gutwrenching feeling of almost losing a child. We cannot even imagine what would have happened if we didn't see it the very second after he wrapped it around his neck. Believe me when we say that we have preached since our kids were old enough to understand the dangers of anything around their necks. It just happens that fast. And who would have any idea that the pretend spider web would be impossible to pull apart. I know that this time of year, people have it all around their homes. Please just know the dangers of it. Especially if you have younger children. I encourage you to pass this along so no one else will experience what we did.