Safety and Risk Management

Unintentional injuries result in nearly 70,000 deaths and millions of nonfatal injuries each year. They are the leading cause of death in the U.S. for people aged 1-44. The leading causes of death from unintentional injuries are motor vehicle crashes, fires, burns, falls, drownings, and poisonings.

Unintentional Injury Facts:

• Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death in the U.S. for people aged 1-24.
• For every injury death, there are about 19 hospitalizations, 233 emergency room visits, and 450 office-based physician visits for injuries.
• Motor vehicle crashes took the lives of 5,768 teens (aged 13-19) and 2,557 children (aged 0-12) in 1994.
• Drowning is the second leading cause of unintentional injury deaths among children and young adults (aged 1-24).
• Each year about 60,000 people are hospitalized for burns.
• Among people over age 65, falls account for about 7,390 deaths a year.
• Alcohol is involved in 40% of all deaths due to motor vehicle crashes and about 40% of deaths in residential fires.
• Each year over 60,000 people are treated in emergency rooms for bicycle-related injuries and 824 die from this type of injury.
• Every 40 seconds someone in the U.S. seeks medical care because of a dog bite.

Buckle Up

Make car safety a habit for yourself and your children. It could prevent serious injuries and even save your life. Seat belts work. The National Highway Safety Administration estimates that correctly used safety belts reduce the risk of fatalities in automobile accidents by 45% and risk of moderate to critical injuries by 50%. The typical parent misunderstands the momentum a child can have inside a car, even at low rates of speed. The child is like a projectile impacting with the car - the windshield, the seat backs, and the dash. A child that goes flying across a car in a collision is very likely to suffer severe, if not fatal, injuries. Short trips can be as dangerous as long ones. Lots of parents think it's okay to leave the child without restraint just to go down the block to the store or even to move the car from one end of the driveway to the other. But even at low speeds, slamming on the brakes to avoid the neighbor's dog can be dangerous. If a child is crying or needs to be fed or changed, always stop the car before you take the child out of the safety seat. It's not enough to strap the child in the safety seat. The seat itself must be properly installed.

Fire-Related Injury

A residential fire occurs every 70 seconds. About every 2 hours, someone dies in a fire. In 1995, 3,425 deaths occurred as a result of residential fires. In 1994, the highest fire-related fatality rates were for children younger than 5 years and adults older than 65 years. Age-adjusted fatality rates for blacks are more than twice those for whites. In 1995, fatality rates for males were greater than 1.5 times the fatality rates for females. Black children aged 0-14 years are more than three times more likely to die in a residential fire than are white children.

Fire Prevention Tips:

1. Install a smoke detector on each habitable floor and one outside each bedroom.
2. Replace batteries in smoke detectors at least once a year.
3. Design and practice a fire escape plan to ensure that exit from the home is quick and safe.
4. Limit use of heating devices (e.g., space heaters and wood-burning stoves) and, if using a heating device, carefully follow manufacturer's operating guidelines.
5. Keep matches and lighters out of children's reach.
6. Do not smoke.

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