Everyone dreads a visit to the Emergency Room...or even worse, the more-dreaded phone call from an ER nurse informing you that a loved one was brought to the hospital following an accident. What I find interesting are the reasons that the Emergency Room sees a rise in patient visits over the holidays. The Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates that 13,000 people in the U.S. land in the ER due to mishaps with toys, lights, and Christmas trees. When I read that, I think "let's put a huge blinking star at the top of the tree using this older-than-dirt bar stool" or "let's ignore the frayed wires on the Christmas lights and put them on the roof anyway."
Seriously though, doctors see a lot of parents and children visit the Emergency Room with deep cuts from the crazy thick and impossible to open packaging that surrounds many children's toys. You've seen it, the kind that is so frustrating to pry apart that you turn to the largest sharp object you can find. Butcher knives, box cutters, wood saws...the bigger, the better.
Holly and mistletoe? Decorative and playful, but also toxic. And if I were a toddler or a dog, that would be the first thing to go in my mouth (followed by the most glittery and expensive tree ornament, of course).
Falls from ladders, burns from Christmas trees set ablaze after lights are left on throughout the night...it's a pretty long list. Maybe if I become an ER doc I will be able to afford better Christmas presents? The miracle of overtime.
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