Tips To Avoid Unintentional Injuries
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, unintentional injuries have caused 173,040 deaths and 24.5 million emergency department visits in the United States from 1999 to 2019. Accidents can happen without warning and cause serious injuries. It may not be possible to prevent all accidents, but there are small steps you can take throughout your daily life to reduce your risk of sustaining an unintentional injury.
Wear Jewelry Sparingly
Some people wear jewelry every day, some people save it for special occasions, and some people never wear any jewelry at all. If you are the type who wears jewelry every day, limit it to only a few pieces. Not only does this make it less likely that you will lose your jewelry, but it also makes you less of a target for potential thieves. A robbery is not exactly an accident because it is intentional on the part of the person who commits it, but it can still result in serious injury, and that is what you are trying to avoid.
If you work a job with your hands that involves heavy machinery, consider removing wedding or engagement rings while you work. These can get caught in the equipment and result in severe injuries to the hands.
Be Mindful of Hot Substances
A severe burn can extend all the way down through the layers of the skin to affect the tissues underneath. Any exposure to hot temperatures puts you at risk for burns, but many occur in the kitchen during cooking. Remember that it is not merely open flames or heating elements that may burn you but steam and hot liquids as well. Even if you are careful about using hot pads or oven mitts, remember that these are not built to last forever. Eventually, they wear out, and you should inspect them frequently to be sure they are still serviceable. You do not want to find out that a hot pad has a hole or a tear as you are using it to pull something out of the oven.
Drive Carefully
There are approximately 11.5 deaths due to motor vehicle accidents for everyone 100,000 people in the United States. You can help avoid traffic accidents by obeying all traffic signals, speed limits, and applicable regulations at all times.
Many traffic accidents occur because drivers were distracted. Technology accounts for many of the most serious driving distractions and should be used sparingly, if at all, while driving. This includes cellphones as well as the infotainment systems increasingly common in newer vehicles. However, you should also be careful not to get distracted by things like billboards, accident scenes, wildlife, the radio, and conversations with people inside the vehicle. These can all be dangerous distractions as well. Anything that can be postponed until you reach your destination should be dealt with then, and you should pull over to deal with anything that needs immediate attention.
Watch Your Step
Slips and falls are one of the most common causes of accidents. An accident of this nature can occur at any age, but young children and the elderly tend to be more susceptible. These ages groups also tend to sustain more severe injuries when slip-and-fall accidents do occur.
You can prevent slips and falls around the home by providing proper lighting so people can see where they are going and by picking up anything off the floor that may cause a person to trip. Elderly people can have grip bars installed in the shower and railings on both sides of the stairways. Parents of young children can install safety gates around stairs or in any area where they do not want children to go.
Unintentional injuries rank third among the United States’ most common causes of death. Care and vigilance over time may help to reduce this ranking. While you cannot control the actions of other people, you can take steps such as these to reduce the risk of an accident that does serious harm to yourself or your family.
