New season, new type of injuries

Depending on the seasons, emergency room doctors are treating different type of personal injuries. As summer is coming more patients check in the ER for heat related injuries, water related injuries, trampoline and bounce house injuries as well as firework injuries.

One of the most common injuries that doctors treat is heat exhaustion. Heat exhaustion often occurs when someone is doing a strenuous physical activity in hot and often humid weather. It affects a lot of construction workers. Heat exhaustion can be dangerous and if not addressed and treated proprely can lead to heat stroke which can be a life-threatening condition.

Emergency room staff is also treating a lot of children who have been injured after playing in bounce houses or jumping on trampolines. According to the Child Injury Prevention alliance, bounce house injuries have sky rocketed over the past 20 years and in the summer, 35 children are being injured every day while playing in a bouce house. Sometimes the injuries can be so serious that they can lead to death. One of the most common bounce house accident occurs when a gust of wind blows the bounce house away or lifts it in the air. Other typical bounce house injuries are those sustained when children bounced into each other’s.

Fireworks injuries such as Burns to the hands or cuts, bumps and bruises to the head are also frequently treated by emergency room staff especially during the Fourth of July holiday. The most dangerous types of fireworks are firecrackers sparklers and bottle rockets. Every year in the US, Fireworks cause a few to die and more than 10,000 to be injured. Accidents related to exposure to fire other than fireworks are also quite common during the summer.

Water related activities also account for an elevated number of injuries and deaths. Drowning is the leading cause of accidental death among children ages 1-4 and the second leading cause of accidental death among children ages 5-9.

Most of the summer injuries are preventable.