The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission on Thursday issued an urgent warning about portable adult bed rails, saying the devices are behind the suffocation deaths of 18 people since 2021.

The agency’s safety alert coincided with the ninth recall of portable bed rails in three years. Medical King of Brooklyn, New York, is recalling about 220,000 adult portable bed rails due to entrapment and asphyxia risks. The recall follows the death of a 66-year-old man who became trapped between a mattress and a bed rail in November at a residential care facility in South Carolina.

The recall involves three models of Medical King Bed Assist Rail with Adjustable Heights (model numbers 7007 and 7057) and the Bed Assist Rail Without Legs (model number 7037). The recalled rails sold online for about $40 on Amazon.com, eBay, Kohls.com, medicalkingusa.com and Target Plus from January 2020 through March 2024.

People who purchased the products, which are made in China, should stop using them and contact Medical King for a repair kit or replacement bed rail, depending on the model. 

Medical King can be reached at 888-334-1142 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday. To register for a repair kit, go to https://medicalkingusa.com/products/recalls or https://medicalkingusa.com and click on “Register Here.” 

The recall is the ninth issued by the CPSC in the last three years. The recalls and two product warnings impacted more than 3 million units and are associated with serious injuries from head, neck or chest entrapment and 18 deaths, the federal agency stated.

CPSC data shows that 92% of fatalities associated with adult portable bed rails are from entrapment, usually of the head or neck.

The agency issued new mandatory safety standards for adult portable bed rails in January 2023.

Often purchased for sick or frail older people, the side rails or metal bars are used on hospital beds and in home care with the idea of helping patients pull themselves up or to keep them from falling out of bed. But these products — which are marketed as safety devices and sold by retailers including Amazon and Walmart, as well as by medical supply stores — have shown to be unsafe for many, with thousands of elderly and disabled patients injured by them.

Most people plan to either be buried or cremated when they die, but there is another, environmentally friendly option: Human composting.

“So instead of being cremated and turned into ash, you’re getting gently transformed into soil,” Tom Harries, CEO and founder of Earth Funeral, explained Thursday on “CBS Mornings Plus.”

Harries described it as an “accelerated natural process” that takes about 30 days with the help of science and technology.

“You get left with soil at the end, and that’s the really neat part is what you do with the soil,” he said. “You can keep it, you can scatter it, you can plant it, and a lot of families donate the soil as well.”

Donated soil has been sent to conservation projects where it’s been used for reforestation, ecosystem restoration and wildfire restoration.

How human composting originated

The process was first legalized in Washington state in 2020. Since then, 11 other states have adopted the method. Those states are: Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Minnesota, Vermont, New York, Maine, Maryland and Delaware.

“It’s labeled as a new process, but this is as old as the first living organisms,” Harries said. “This is what happens to any living organism when it dies, but we’re accelerating it as I say through science and technology, so it’s a completely natural process.”

The base cost of a “soil transformation package,” according to the Earth Funeral website, is about $5,000.

Harries, who has started three companies in the industry, came across the process in 2020. For him, it’s personal.

“The company prior to Earth was an online cremation company … and the thing I really realized is, I just didn’t want to be cremated. It’s a pollutive process. It’s hard to be excited by the concept of getting cremated … I wanted it for me and I therefore wanted to bring it to others, too.”

He said he sees the eco-friendly option becoming more popular in the future.

“Death is obviously deeply personal, a lot of considerations, religion is one of them. There’s been a little bit of opposition, but I think it’s a new concept. It will gain greater acceptance in mainstream culture at the time.”

Tropical Storm Sara formed in the Caribbean on Thursday, becoming the 18th named storm of the 2024 Atlantic Hurricane Season. The system, previously called Tropical Depression 19, developed in the western Caribbean earlier this week and intensified while traveling westward on a path toward Central America.

Sara has sustained winds of 40 mph and is located around 205 miles east-southeast of Isla Guanaja, Honduras, moving west, the National Hurricane Center said. A weather system is considered a tropical storm when its wind speeds accelerate to at least 39 mph. 

The storm is expected to linger in the Caribbean through the weekend and slowly move into the Gulf of Mexico early next week, CBS News meteorologist Nikki Nolan said. After that, the weather system could potentially make its way toward Florida.

“Long-range models continue to forecast it tracking back towards Florida by the end of next week, but a lot can change between now and then,” Nolan said Thursday morning. “Florida residents should closely monitor the forecast updates as they come in.”

The Atlantic Hurricane Season officially runs from June 1 until Nov. 30, with activity typically peaking between mid-August and mid-October. An average season brings 14 named storms, seven hurricanes, and three major hurricanes, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which did predict the 2024 season would produce “above average” numbers. 

What is the projected path of Tropical Storm Sara?

Tropical Storm Sara could potentially bring catastrophic rainfall to parts of Central America. Between 10 and 20 inches of heavy rainfall are possible in Honduras early next week, forecasters warned, with up to 30 inches accumulating in some places.

Forecasters at the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said they expected “life-threatening” flash floods to hit northern Honduras and persist through the weekend. The hurricane center also warned of potentially disastrous mudslides caused by the storm, especially in the mountainous area along and near Sierra La Esperanza on the country’s northeastern coast. They estimated those conditions would persist through the weekend.

The rest of Honduras, Belize, El Salvador, eastern Guatemala and western Nicaragua will likely receive between 5 and 10 inches of rainfall as the storm runs its course through that region, but up to 15 inches are possible. 

Governments across Central America have issued various watches and warnings as people brace for Sara’s effects. Vast sections of Nicaragua and Honduras, including the Bay Islands, are under either a hurricane watch or a tropical storm warning, according to the hurricane center.

Will Tropical Storm Sara become a hurricane?

It remains to be seen whether Sara will grow into a hurricane by the time it’s expected to move close to the eastern coast of Honduras on Friday or Saturday, but forecasters said the storm would likely “be near or at hurricane strength” when that happens. 

A tropical storm becomes a hurricane when its sustained winds reach at least 74 mph, making it a Category 1 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.

Forecasters also cautioned residents of Belize and Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula to be ready for possible impacts of Sara early next week. 

Will Tropical Storm Sara hit Florida?

After entering the Gulf of Mexico, the consensus of the forecast models has the storm making a right-hand turn and heading toward Florida by late next week, though Nolan noted that conditions can quickly change. 

Hurricane hunters were flying into the area Thursday to investigate the strength and structure of the developing weather system. 

Forecast models take in the current environmental factors along with historical data to compute “spaghetti plots” of where systems may track. Each model uses different computations, and the forecast track is an output of the consensus from those models.

“It is too soon to determine what impacts the system could bring to portions of the eastern Gulf of Mexico, including Florida, the Florida Keys, and Cuba during the middle portion of next week,” the hurricane center said Thursday. “Residents in these areas should regularly monitor updates to the forecast.”

contributed to this report.