Five Common Holiday Injuries and How to Avoid Them

Don’t ruin your holidays by accidentally hurting yourself.  Here are a few common holiday injuries, and how to avoid them:

1.  Falling off a ladder while you’re hanging decorations.  There are 160 of those types of injuries every DAY this time of year.  The rule of thumb is for every four feet you have to climb, you should move the base of the ladder one foot away from the wall.  And make sure someone’s down there holding it too.

2.  Toy-related injuries.  There are around 150,000 of them each year in kids 14 and under.  So make sure they’re old enough for the new toys you’re buying.  The most dangerous, statistically, are Razor scooters.

3.  Fires.  Be careful cooking, and with trees and candles.  Trees cause around 100 major fires in November and December each year.  And candles cause 1,000.

4.  Lifting injuries.  We get a lot more packages this time of year.  So don’t rush or twist while picking stuff up.  And lift with your legs, not your back.

5.  Cutting yourself.  The big culprit is opening packages with scissors or a knife.  Always cut away from yourself, but never toward anyone else.  And make sure to help kids with packaging that might be tough to open.

(UCLA)