THE VALUED VOICE

The holiday season is synonymous with excitement for getting together with family, enjoying delicious meals and attending festive events meant to create and share cheerful experiences. The multiple holidays, while joyful and fun, can also lead to more dangerous injuries than one might think. Data shows that during the month of December, there is an increase in specific types of injuries related to Christmas and other holiday activities. Some of the most common holiday injuries include falls or electrocution when handling decorations, shopping injuries, fires and burns, and dangerous driving accidents.
 
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) estimates that each year, holiday decorations and lights are responsible for more than 12,000 emergency room visits because of falls, cuts and shocks. The commission also notes that each day during the holiday season there are on average 160 decorating related injuries, with roughly half of the injuries involving falls. With more families staying home these past couple of years and wanting to decorate, experts estimate there will be more visits to the emergency room due to falls, cuts, and shocks.
 
The WHA Information Center analyzed claims from January 2020 to March 2021 to see how populations are impacted by accidental shocks. The trend of visits to a hospital for electrocution shows a definite rise in numbers from October-December, more specifically in December. A fair number of cases involve children aged 20 and younger who visited a hospital from a shock. Sometimes children are most susceptible to these types of injuries due to curiosity and not fully understanding the risk.
 
The CPSC released data on how fires and burns increase around the holiday season. The information shows that, “cooking fires remain the number-one cause of residential fires.” Further, CPSC data show that there are about 360,000 home fires every year, leading to about 2,400 deaths and nearly 10,400 injuries each year (CPSC, 2021). From 2018-2019, dry Christmas trees and unwatched candles led to dangerous house fires responsible for 180 injuries and almost $56 million in property damage.
 
Another major injury-causing event that occurs during the holiday season is car accidents. Whether it’s because of people rushing to get shopping done, holiday-related travel or hazardous weather conditions, the number of car accidents increases around holidays.
 
No matter what you have planned or your reason for celebrating, have a safe and happy holiday season.