Unintentional injuries are the leading cause of death among children in the United States, according to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

On average, 12,175 children 19 years old or younger died each year in the U.S. between 2000 and 2006 from an unintentional injury.

For children under a year old, two-thirds of injury deaths were due to suffocation. Drowning was the leading cause of injury death for those 1 to 4 years of age. For children 5 to 19, most injury deaths were due to motor vehicle crashes.

Hawai'i experienced 217 unintentional injury deaths between 2000 and 2005 for those up to 19 years old.

Eight of those deaths occurred among children 4 years old or younger.