The Christmas season is a jolly time until someone gets hurt. With all the hype and demands surrounding Christmas time, it’s no surprise that thousands of people are injured every year from falling off a ladder while stringing lights or cutting their finger while carving a turkey. By doing little things like taking precautions and allowing more time, everyone could reduce their chance of an injury over the holiday period. Here are holiday-related injuries that are surprisingly common:
Back Injuries caused by Lifting With Christmas comes decorating and un-decorating such as lifting the tree, frequently climbing ladders and lifting various heavy objects. These all can lead to back pain which can be acute and short lived, but often times can become chronic and a terrible pain to deal with. Ensuring you have a partner or friend to lift the tree or other heavy objects helps to evenly distribute the load amongst multiple people. Lift using your legs to ensure that the strain is taken off of your back in order to prevent possible major chronic back injuries.
Falls: Falls are very common around the holidays, when people go to great heights to decorate their Christmas trees and put up lights. When decorating, use step stools instead of furniture and take precaution when stepping onto a ladder. By having someone hold the ladder steady and ensuring the ladder is on solid ground, ladder injuries can be prevented.
Sports Accidents: A good clean game of football or cricket with the family can turn dangerous when someone pulls their hamstring or is concussed after a hard-hitting tackle. Sports injuries are very common around the holidays when families get together and challenge each other to a competitive game. Even playtime for kids can result in injuries, like bruises, cuts and broken bones. If you’re going to play sports this holiday season, make sure you play nice and don’t overexert yourself to avoid unintentional injuries.
Stay Cool Buying your kids a skateboad, roller blades or surfboard can be a dangerous gamble as dads see it as an opportunity to show their kids how its done. Around this time people, especially males, do things they used to do 20 years ago. Simple advice is, just take it a little bit slower and take a deep breath and learn to say no. There are misadventures when people are having fun and something silly happens. It goes very quickly from something silly to something fractured, then it’s not funny anymore.
Car Accidents: Christmas is one of the busiest travel times of the year. The risk of car accidents and car-related injuries increases as more people hit the roads to go out of town. Not to mention, there are more impaired drivers out on the road during the holidays than the rest of the year. Whiplash, lacerations, bruises and broken bones are just some of the car-related injuries that can happen to drivers who’ve been in a car crash. In order to prevent car accidents, you can make sure you and your family and friends always have a designated driver after drinking, and avoid the roads late at night and during high traffic times. Also, make sure everyone in your vehicle is buckled up at all times and young children are travelling in the correct car seats.
Choking: With the amount of food being ingested and the small trinkets that kids get their hands on, it’s no wonder why choking is one of the biggest injuries during the holidays. Choking is a serious concern for families with small children and caution should be taken to make sure all of your holiday decorations are baby-proofed. As tempting as it is to gobble down those holiday meals, make sure you take your time to chew and swallow properly so you don’t choke on your food.
Christmas is meant to be a joyous and wonderful time, but can be quickly ruined by an injury. Injuries, property damage and even death can be easily avoided by taking extra preventative measures these holidays. So before plugging in those lights, hoisting the tree or removing decorations, be sure to follow the steps and tips provided.
