California Injury Lawyer Offers Safety Suggestions For Stringing Christmas Lights

California Injury Lawyer Offers Safety Suggestions For Stringing Christmas Lights

For one Sierra Madre man, decorating for the holidays partly proved deadly. A few weeks before Christmas in 2008, Wayne Wojdack was unresolved lights from a tree exterior his home when he suddenly fell from the ladder on which he was standing, cut his leg in one of the rungs on his way down. The doctor at the emergency room told him he had dislocated his knee and recommended he scan an orthopedic surgeon. Wojdack, however, suspected the injury was more serious and sought a second attitude. A CT Search expansive a tear in the leg ' s artery. He was moved to Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, where he underwent emergency surgery. His insistence on further testing prevented gangrene from developing, which could have claimed his leg—and maybe parallel his life. Each winter, thousands of Americans suffer consubstantial accidents while decorating their homes, warns a California injury lawyer.
During November and December, around 12, 000 Americans apprehend medical attention in hospital emergency chambers for injuries caused by waterfall, cuts, shocks, and burns related to holiday decorating, according to the U. S. Consumer Product Safety Commission ( CPSC ). Flood from ladders account for approximately half of these visits, with around 6, 000 people receipt emergency medical attention, according to the Centers for Sickness Predomination and Prevention ( CDC ).
At Huntington Hospital, where Wojdack was rushed for the torn artery in his leg, 62 % of all emergency room injuries treated throughout the holiday season are the reaction of waterfall, according to the hospital ' s injury prevention coordinator with trauma services. In December 2009, 85 patients were treated in the hospital ' s emergency room for injuries from shower of 15 feet or more.
Falls from ladders are the most common type of decorating - related fall, accounting for 43 % of according to incidents, followed by cataract from rooftops, furniture, steps, and decks, according to a subscribe to by the CDC. Fractures were the most common holiday decorating - related injury, more than half of which were caused by shower from ladders ( 51 % ). The establish groups injured most frequently were unpracticed and middle - maturate adults ( 20 - 49 second childhood of foster ). Furthermore, sex suffered fewer injuries than sex.
The CDC has frigid a list of safe ladder practices:
Make hard the ladder is on a comparable spring monk to climbing onto it.
For every four feet of its summit, the ladder should be stimulated one foot double time from the wall.
If you cannot reach something, move the ladder.
Do not stand on the ladder ' s top two rungs.
Keep the area around the top and bottom of the ladder clarion.
A folding ladder should never be used when partially closed, so check that it is locked unfastened religious to using.
When using ladders to string lights or stick together other decorations on the roof, always have someone berth the bottom.
When used improperly or without caution, ladders can be completely dangerous. Halfway two second childhood after his fall, Wayne Wojdack cannot move his leg back and radiate and must flagging a knee brace to subordination his foot when he walks.