BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM
ER visits aren’t always the result of dramatic car crashes or exotic animal bites. Sometimes it’s just you, your kitchen, and an innocent-looking avocado conspiring to ruin your Tuesday. According to ER doctors, a huge portion of emergency room injuries are both shockingly common and totally preventable.
According to the CDC, injuries make up nearly 30 percent of all ER visits. But unlike, say, heart attacks or freak accidents, many of these injuries boil down to a handful of everyday missteps, often quite literally.
Here are the top five injuries ER docs say they see all the time, plus their very practical (and occasionally hilariously blunt) advice for how to stay out of the waiting room.
Tripping hazards are sneakier than you think
No, it’s not bungee jumping or rock climbing that’s landing people in the ER. It’s the good old staircase. “You’re in a hurry, you’re on autopilot, and the next thing you know, you’re flying down the stairs and missing the last step,” says Mark Morocco, MD, an emergency medicine physician at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.
The wrong footwear doesn’t help. Think: hiking in slides, crossing ice in Crocs, or teetering on gravel in stilettos. Mark Conroy, MD, at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, urges you to dress for the terrain and “carry fewer things at a time so you can actually see where you’re walking.”
Put the knives down (and grab a cutting board)
If you’ve ever attempted to pit an avocado by stabbing it with a knife, stop. Dr. Conroy says “avocado hand” is a frequent flier at the ER, as is its cousin, “bagel hand.”
Dr. Morocco recommends wearing cut-resistant safety gloves when handling knives, while Dr. Rade Vukmir warns against slicing anything with a confusing texture (soft on the outside, hard on the inside) while holding it in your hand. And don’t even get ER doctors started on mandolines. “They elicit groans,” notes Jeff Baker, DO, from Palm Springs. “Beautiful slices, brutal injuries.”
Two wheels, big risks
E-bikes, scooters, and bicycles account for more ER injuries than you might guess, ranging from nasty road rashes to traumatic brain injuries. Dr. Morocco has even seen entire bodies “cheese-gratered.”
Dr. Baker says the most dangerous rides happen on city streets with high-speed traffic. So if you insist on scooting around, wear a helmet (no, it’s not optional) and consider foam-padded safety glasses too. Dr. Morocco insists: “You really don’t want a bug flying into your eye at 20 miles per hour.”
Also, don’t text and ride. Stay visible, pick stable roads, and think of this as a ride-or-crash scenario.
Ladders: danger disguised as helpful
“Using a ladder to trim trees or reach a roof is basically asking for trouble,” says Dr. Baker. Even a six-foot fall can break bones, and ER docs often advise hiring someone instead.
If you must do it yourself, place the ladder on solid ground and make sure it’s structurally sound. And yes, someone should be nearby in case of emergency, but not to hold the ladder. That rarely ends well.
Indoors, Dr. Morocco points to step stools as deceptively dangerous. “People fall off trying to reach the top of the fridge all the time.” Always use the right height stool, keep it centered, and maintain one hand on a stable surface.
Protect your eyeballs, please
Want to know what hurts? A tiny piece of metal or wood flying into your eye while you’re mowing the lawn, grinding metal, or leaf-blowing without safety glasses.
Dr. Conroy warns that this can lead to scratched corneas or even an “open globe injury”—aka a puncture in your actual eyeball. Just wear the plastic safety goggles, says Dr. Morocco. They’re not glamorous, but neither is spending your afternoon explaining to an ER nurse how a leaf got lodged in your retina.
