Holiday Accidents and Injuries By the Numbers
Nothing is more important than keeping your little ones safe. Yet every minute, 17 children go to the emergency room with unintentional injuries – that’s 9.2 million accidents that didn’t have to happen every year.*
It’s often small decisions – a candle left burning, a dry Christmas tree or child left alone even for a moment – that could have life-changing consequences. When it comes to holiday dangers, the numbers are more startling than you might think:
- Each year, fires occurring during the holiday season claim the lives of more than 400 Americans, injure 1,650 more, and cause more than $990 million in damage. Source: USFA December and Holiday Fires (2006)
- Candle-related fires are one of the most common holiday home hazards, averaging more than 15,000 each year, resulting in 166 deaths, nearly 13,000 injuries and $450 million in direct property damage. Source: NFPA (June 2010)
- About 5,800 people – two to three every hour – were treated in emergency departments for fall-related injuries sustained while decorating during each of the 2000, 2001 and 2002 holiday seasons.Source: CDC Fall-Related Injuries During the Holiday Season (2004)
- Christmas trees, both natural and artificial, were the item first ignited in an estimated average of 250 reported home structure fires per year during 2003-2007. These fires caused an estimated average of 14 civilian deaths, 26 civilian injuries and $13.8 million in direct property damage per year Source: NFPA Home Christmas Tree and Holiday Light Fires (2009)
By taking simple steps, we have an opportunity to help change these statistics together. Committing a minute to safety can be as quick and easy as testing your smoke alarm, taking pillows out of the crib or simply using a cabinet lock. Imagine if every mom committed just one minute to safety every day? Thousands, perhaps millions, of injuries could be avoided. Moms today have a powerful opportunity to raise a safer generation of children, and it can all start by committing just one minute to safety.
For more than 116 years, Underwriters Laboratories (UL) has been an independent safety certification organization that tests, inspects, validates and inspects products for safety.
We hope you will join us and Commit a Minute to Safety for your family. Not sure where to start? Find 100 Ways to make your home safer in a minute. Then, Commit a Minute to Safety every day.
*Source: CDC Childhood Injury Report (2000-2006)
