Dusty Roach
This is my favorite time of the year! It is every safety person’s “reward time” of the year! No, not necessarily the monetary reward, but rather the reward of employees enjoying their families and friends. Another untold bonus is being able to return to work for some Holiday Relief. As I write about the different aspects of holiday safety virtually every year, this year it has a few more twists.
The first part of December is a great time, before all of the busy-ness starts, to replace your smoke/carbon monoxide alarms and the battery back up. This allows early detection. Always put in new batteries each year, and use the older batteries for Christmas toys or for flashlights, etc. Believe me, you will want the noisy toys to lose power before the first of January.
Unless you want to be famous on Facebook or Instagram, or on other home videos on TV shows, give extra attention to Turkey Fryers. The videos are not for the faint of heart. It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt! You can check that out on YouTube. If you are a first time turkey fryer, be aware that it’s worth it to read all of the directions and the safety tips, all of which are based on previous accidents.
Electrical outside decorations and tree lights are known to harm thousands of people every year, and nonelectrical decorations do as well. Men were more likely to be harmed by the act of hanging electrical lights and decorations. However, women and men alike experience kitchen accidents each year when cooking, doing food prep, carving, using dull knives, tending cooking fires, etc.
Hopefully this will help keep you from making the annual holiday trip to the minor emergency room or hospital during the holidays. I’ll be detailing some additional holiday tips that are not often thought of and some dangers that, sadly, are too often heard of. For instance, when you hear a horrible story of a house burning down due to Christmas lights—a hazard which can easily be remedied by timers. There are also instances of chimney catching fire when they have not been adequately cleaned or inspected. There are also dangers of inadequate and overloaded power strips, which are perennial fire hazards.
Falls, cuts, and burns will account for many of the injuries. However, you would be amazed at the fatalities that are caused by electrocution by watering live trees with the lights still plugged in. I am continually amazed at the “Walenski” balancing acts on ladders that have been in the family for years. Have you noticed the family ladders are usually just a foot or two too short and seldom inspected? Some accidents could be remedied by putting the top ornament on the tree while the tree is still lying on the ground.
There are the same safety measures that are covered every Christmas season, such as those pertaining to decorating trees and handling electrical lighting. There is advice aplenty to help one avoid cooking accidents. The same is true for handling small fires, turkey fryers, smoke alarms, etc. All should be heeded just like the “top ten accidents” as such are listed by OSHA for our industry. Yet, every year the top ten accidents remain in the top ten for the holidays. Every year you see individuals utilize the same reasoning for bypassing safety precautions. For example: “I’ve hung these same decorations for the last 20 years…I know what I’m doing.”
So instead of covering all of the same tips each year that people ignore, I will change it up a little bit this year.
This year I am emphasizing the health aspect. Since we’ve started this second year of Covid activity, health is a major concern. Mental and physical health. Due to the corona virus there has been less physical activity, less attention to mental health, and of course less attention to the the silent killer, Stress. Numerous studies have indicated that each year there is a rise in cardiovascular episodes during the holiday season. To make matters worse, there are more cases of depressive disorders, defined as a common and serious medical illness that negatively affects how you feel, the way you think, and how you act. Most people that have depression do not have the ability to self-diagnose. This leads me to my final point about safety, which is physical health.
Here is what you do not normally hear about regarding safety during the holidays: it involves stress. We can all agree that, with the holidays, there is obviously a certain amount of stress that is introduced. Stress is usually accompanied by an abundance of food, alcohol, lack of exercise, and sleep. When all these factor converge, the situation is not conducive to good health.
Research has shown that fatal heart attacks are highest during the holidays. As one study led by researchers at the University of California San Diego (2020) shows, more cardiac deaths occur on Christmas Day than on any other day of the year, with another peak landing on New Years Day.
So let us make this a safe and healthy holiday season. Pay attention to the needs of the body, mind, and soul. Take care of yourself and your loved ones; and have a Merry Christmas and a safe New Year!
It’s not how many hits you have in baseball; it is how many times you reach home safely that counts.