5 Common Holiday Injuries and Safety Tips

The holidays can be a great time to get things done around the home and celebrate with loved ones, but if you're not careful, they can also be a time of great risk and injury. The truth is, injuries can actually be fairly common during the holiday season because of hazards around the home while decorating and celebrating.

If you aren't careful, you can wind up spending your holiday season looking for an orthopedic specialist in Atlanta rather than enjoying a cup of cocoa with your loved ones. Here are a few of the most common injuries during the holiday season that you can avoid!

Falling from a Ladder

If you're the type to put up holiday decorations on the exterior of your home, you know that you've usually got a ladder involved in the process. If the ladder isn't held steady by someone else, it's easy for you to lose your footing on the ladder or even find it falling away from the house, leaving you to crash into the ground.

To avoid this injury, what you need to do is work with someone you trust when decorating your home. Usually, your spouse or a neighbor is a great partner to have hold the ladder while you get on the roof to place your lights. Unless your children are around middle-school age or older, this isn't a job that should be entrusted to them.

Slipping on Ice

In Atlanta, this isn't the kind of worry that it would be in a northern city such as New York or Chicago, but ice can still happen here, and if it does, it's a major concern because many Georgians are unfamiliar with ice and how to walk on it. To avoid these injuries, walk on grass if your sidewalk has frozen over, as you'll likely have better traction as well as a softer landing spot if you do slip.

Lifting your Christmas Tree

For some families, there's nothing like the smell and feel of a real Douglas Fir for their Christmas tree in December. But these trees come with a risk: lifting them is no easy task. If you try to lift your tree with your back, you can give yourself a hernia or worse. Always make sure to lift with your legs and never try to do the task on your own. Alternatively, you could go for an artificial tree, which takes much less lifting to get set up. But if you have to have a real tree, make sure that you lift intelligently.

Burns from Candles

You might think that it's impossible for something as simple as a holiday candle to present a real risk, but carelessness strikes all the time during the holiday season. All it takes is one careless swipe of the arm and a candle can overturn and spread fire to the carpet or other areas in the home. If you've got a real tree or gift-wrapped presents in the living room, a candle can be a major hazard in a hurry.

Cutting Yourself

This happens more than you think with a present that's difficult to unwrap: someone brings in scissors or a knife to cut through the tape and ends up cutting more than they intended, causing a laceration in their hand. Always cut away from you and away from anyone else.

The holidays shouldn't be a time to stress about injury, and with a few precautions, you can make sure that your holiday is injury and worry-free. Rather than spend your holidays looking up an orthopedic specialist in Atlanta to fix a muscle injury, you can relax in comfort with the people who matter most. Visit OrthoAtlanta today to learn more!