Fun Fact Friday: June 2nd 2017- Summer Safety

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During the summer months, when school is out, emergency room visits from children under 14 years old rise by 18 percent! Whether they are just finishing pre-school or about to leave for college, here are some helpful tips on how to keep your children safe.

Keep a Watchful Eye

“As much as you can, do good monitoring,” is the advice for parents from Kimberly Myers, suicide prevention coordinator for Utah’s Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health.

She means monitor driving, drug and alcohol use, what kids are doing, where they’re going and who is with them. She means checking in on them personally and also watching them on social media.

“Make the environment as safe as possible,” she says. If kids get bored or curious, make sure you’re locking up things like alcohol and storing firearms safely with multiple layers of locks.

Younger kids need supervision. Older kids need a clear understanding of expectations and rules. Children face a lot of risks in summer and each comes with specific things that parents can do.

Swimming and other Summer Water Activities

Even before most schools let out for summer break, warm weather beckons families outside, but an unusually wet spring has prompted experts to warn parents about water dangers — warnings punctuated with real deaths involving children and adults.

Water is always potentially dangerous, but that’s especially true when it’s running high and fast. And children are very vulnerable. Anyone out on the water should wear a life jacket.

“People need to be very careful around streams, rivers, and lakes,” says Jenny Johnson, a spokeswoman for the Utah Department of Health, who tells parents to stay within arm’s reach of a child who is near water. Learning to swim won’t guarantee safety around water any more than the presence of a lifeguard will guarantee it. Until kids can swim, don’t rely on water wings. Use life jackets and supervision.

Age and experience around water make a great difference. Older kids are more likely to get in trouble in lakes and reservoirs, usually when they are out with friends and family on a boat and overestimate their swimming prowess or the water temperature.

“Teens take risks at a much higher rate. When one drowns, it’s not typically at the pool in swim trunks with a lifeguard. Sometimes alcohol and drugs are involved. Or they challenge each other and think they can swim farther than they can.”

Younger children are more likely to drown in a pool or in a smaller body of water. If a child has wandered off, check water features first. Drowning is usually silent and the person may look like he is simply bobbing in the water.

  • This video accurately depicts drowning and is noteworthy for its lack of drama and flailing and shouting.

Kiddie pools should be emptied after each use. Kids can drown in tiny amounts of water in some circumstances. If a child has a seizure, in or near any liquid, the risk of drowning is amplified. 

Summer Driving

Vehicle fatalities don’t occur when people think they do. Nearly 6 in 10 crashes occur during daytime and more than 83 percent are on dry roads.

The factors most often involved in vehicle fatalities are not using seat belts; drivers who are alcohol/drug impaired; aggressive driving; motorcycles; pedestrians; and drowsy driving and distracted driving, which are about equal. Bicycles are involved in a small portion of vehicle crashes. Any death could involve more than one of those factors.

Seat belts save lives and prevent injuries in crashes. Make sure everyone is properly restrained in the vehicle and in the proper car seats or booster seats or seat belts. Make sure they are in the proper part of the vehicle, which means children, belong in the back.

Teenagers are more apt to wear seat belts when they’re alone and not with friends. They don’t buckle up. Or they pile into a car with more kids than there are seat belts, which can be disastrous.

The weight of the occupant multiplied by the speed the vehicle is traveling is how much restraining force is needed to hold someone in place. Even low-speed crashes can be deadly. In 2010, Utah college student Chelsie Hill was thrown through the sunroof and killed when the vehicle she was in was clipped at 5 mph by another vehicle.

In summer, as families take road trips, kids sometimes fall asleep. Don’t let them unbuckle or put the shoulder part of their seat belt behind them so they’ll be more comfortable. You never know when a crash is going to occur. Wear your seat belt properly.

It’s also important to sit properly, feet on the floor. A teen who rides with his or her feet on the dashboard can be badly injured if the airbag deploys.

Use restraints properly!

  • A seat belt should cross the clavicle, while the lower belt sits low on one’s lap.
  • A child safety seat must be the right size. At the U.S. Department of Transportation’s safercar.gov, parents can input weight and height to determine which size is best. The seat must be properly locked, the seat belt holding it tight so it doesn’t move more than an inch. The harness should be snug against the child. The chest clip should be at armpit level.

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Bikes, Trikes and Rollerblades

Nationwide, every hour, about 50 children visit emergency departments for injuries resulting from bikes, scooters, skateboards or skates. They include serious head injuries and lots of fractures. Four in 10 kids, ages 5-14, don’t wear helmets each time they do four-wheeled sports, according to the Safe Kids organization. Only about one-third of bicyclists in a crash wore a helmet.

  • Of 30 skateboarders who died, only two wore helmets. All were male; half were children, most were teens.
  • If parents insist on helmets — and always wear them themselves — children are much more likely to use them.

Keeping a helmet handy helps. If a kid has to hunt for it in the house, he or she may decide to go without one. If the helmet is with the bike, scooter, or skateboard, the child or teen is much more likely to use it.

One of the biggest reasons kids get hurt while not wearing helmets or seat belts is parents don’t always insist. They figure they’re close to home, or just going a short distance. What could go wrong? The cost in human capital — injuries, death, suffering, health care costs, lost wages and more — makes it a multibillion-dollar question.

When You’re a Pedestrian

“I think kids and parents don’t understand how big of a deal the visibility issue is,” says Marques Varela, Vulnerable Roadway Users Program manager for Utah’s Department of Public Safety. “It takes quite a bit of either light or someone having reflective stuff on for drivers to not only see but actually recognize someone as a pedestrian.”

Most often in crash investigations, officials find the driver took action too late because he didn’t recognize what he was seeing at first. Anyone not wearing an actual light or something “really, really reflective” must assume drivers don’t see them, he said.

  • A Zero Fatalities video produced for the Utah Department of Transportation and the Department of Public Safety shows the difference between pedestrians wearing reflective gear and those who aren’t. In the video, at 100 feet, a group of runners are finally visible, and to avoid hitting them, a car would have to be going slower than 25 mph.

The second issue is right of way. Having it doesn’t mean a driver will see or respond appropriately. People assume that because they can see headlights of the car, they are being seen by the driver. This may not be true. Kids often cut between crosswalks to save time. They don’t wait for lights but try to dodge traffic. They are distracted by friends, technology, and other factors, putting themselves in danger. It’s a poorly understood fact that hitting a crosswalk button not only causes a signal that is supposed to alert drivers but it also adds a few extra seconds so that pedestrians can cross, Varela added.

Summer Heat

Emergency departments treat kids who’ve been left in hot cars. They cool down children who have heat stroke and heat exhaustion. They see burns from campfires, barbecues, and fireworks. All things that are hot, are not kid-friendly.

Every year, children die after being left in a car in the heat. It’s like being in an oven. This can even occur in cool months because cars become hot if the sun beats on the window, even when the temperature is low. Cracking the window is not good enough. Never leaving a child in a car is the answer.

The most common reason young kids are left in a car is a change in routine, such as taking the baby to daycare when your spouse usually does it. Some experts suggest leaving a purse or shoe you’ll need in back with the child. You’ll see the baby when you retrieve the other item you need.

  • Children also sometimes hop into unlocked cars and get trapped. So lock the doors when you park.

Fireworks and skin are not a good mix. Sparklers burn at 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit! Some precautions include forgoing sparklers in favor of glow sticks and having water around so a fire can be put out immediately.

Kids should never be allowed to play around barbecues or campfires. A loss of footing or balance could mean disaster. For home grills, use the right tools and make sure nothing is around to catch fire.

Hydrate! Hydrate! Hydrate!

Hydration is absolutely critical during hot summer day activities! To combat heat stroke and exhaustion, this is the appropriate formula, for how much water you need to drink.

Calculation-

From the Kaye/Bassman Higher Education Recruiting Team-

Keep safe and enjoy the Summer!

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Source:  How to keep your child safe during the ‘100 deadly days of summer’  @loisco Published: May 29, 2017, 5:00 a.m.Updated: May 28, 2017 10:31 p.m.

Top Photo by Adam Whitlock, Wading Pool Photo by Matthias Zomer, Lady and Bike Photo by Valeria Boltneva Hydrate Photo originally by Jeremy Bishop