How to Prevent Personal Injury This Holiday Season

Thursday, August 2, 2012

How to Prevent Personal Injury This Holiday Season

Written by Malman Law, reviewed by Steve J. Malman.

The holiday season is upon us, and many of us our caught up in all those fun holiday tasks – decorating the house, baking, shopping and many more things that are well outside of our normal everyday routines. And for that reason, it doesn’t hurt to make a checklist of how to complete these holiday tasks safely to avoid personal injury. (Thanks for the tips, Yahoo! Shine!)

Exterior Decorating

If you are a person who decorates the outside of the house, here are some precautions you should take to avoid holiday accidents:

• Plan Ahead: Before you are up on a ladder trying to untangle lights, have a game plan. Make sure you have the things you need and know where they will be plugged in. Otherwise, you may create a fire by overloading electrical sockets or runnning too many extension cords.
• The Right Stuff: Make sure you have the appropriate equipment. This means materials rated for outdoor use and able to sustain the season (if not multiple seasons) of use. Examples include stainless steel hooks and exterior extension cords.
• Use the Ladder With Care: Or not at all. “Following a three-year study, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that almost 18,000 people ended up in emergency rooms due to holiday decorating falls … and it’s estimated the total number of injuries is 2 to 3 times this number,” reports Shine.
• Conserve With Timers: Installing automatic timers can save you time and money. You set them once for when you want your lights on and off and – voila! – you don’t have to worry about them until sometime after the new year.