Heading off possible holiday hazards

It’s that time of year when festivities kick into full gear, which for some, includes stringing Christmas lights around their home. Whether it’s considered a task or a joy, hanging lights is something that comes with hazards that could land you in the hospital.

Covering a single-family home in festive lights may seem like a chore but try putting up the Lights of Hope display at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver. This year about nine kilometres of lights were hung and it’s a job where you need to know what you’re doing to pull it off.

“Workers Compensation Board (WCB) regulations have us, anything over three metres or 10 feet, we have to wear a full harness fall protection and we’re strapped in, lanyards and such like that,” says Greg Heieis with Stuart Olson Construction.

Of course homeowners are not expected to take such precautions when hanging lights, but that doesn’t mean people shouldn’t careful. If you fail to do so, the end result could be a trip to the hospital.

“Around the holiday season we note that some people try to get up high to put up Christmas lights up on their houses, their eaves and that can sometimes result in some very unnecessary injuries,” says St. Paul’s Hospital orthopedic surgeon Dr. Tamim Umran.

While breaking a bone and getting a cast does not equate to fun, the injuries can, and often are, more serious than that, according to Umran.

“In many circumstances with these injuries, you require surgery and that would require the use of plates and screws and sometimes rods, to stabilize those bones,” he added.

Heieis echoes the doctor’s sentiments saying, “people have been hurt and killed falling off one step. You don’t have to be 20 feet up in air. It doesn’t have to be super complicated because you fall, the ladder goes, and you hit your head… You can be just as dead or just as paralyzed.”

A few tips to help get you through the process unscathed include:

• Keeping three points of contact at all times while on the ladder.
• Correct placement of your ladder — don’t place a straight ladder against a wall, don’t place it too vertical or too far out on the bottom.
• To be safe, you want a three-to-one ratio

Heieis says if people get into trouble after all those precautions, the reason is often the same.

“It is always reaching for something too lazy to take the two steps down and move the ladder to the right spot.”