CPSC, Dollar General Corp. Announce Recall of Dive Sticks

Recall Insight

This CPSC action (record #05112) was formally reported on February 16, 2005. It is classified under Moderate severity, with a current status of Active. The Dollar General Corp., of Goodlettsville, Tenn. is listed as the recalling firm. Federal records indicate About 180,000 dive stick packages units are affected, a scale large enough to require multi-state distribution tracking.

The documented reason for this recall is: Children can fall or land on these upright dive sticks in shallow water and suffer impalement injuries. CPSC banned pre-weighted dive sticks in 2001. Distribution information was not included in the agency filing, so consumers should assume broad potential exposure until the firm publishes point-of-sale details. The remedy documented by the agency is: Consumers should take these dive sticks away from children immediately and return them to Dollar General stores for a refund, or discard them. — consumers holding this product should act on that instruction rather than relying on general guidance.

To put this record in context, PlainRecalls indexes 83,949 recalls across the FDA, CPSC, NHTSA and USDA FSIS going back to 1995. Within the same product category, the database holds 6 closely related recalls. That clustering is a signal — repeated actions in a narrow category often indicate a systemic quality-control issue, a supplier-wide contamination, or a design defect that has propagated across product lines. This recall is roughly 21 years old; older recalls can remain relevant because many units enter resale, rental, and secondary-market channels where the original warning never reaches the end user. Always cross-check the recall number against the official agency page before relying on any summary.