I love Casualty, the TV programme as opposed to the real thing. From my experience I am sure that if there is a hell then it will be like an Accident & Emergency room on a Saturday night. Unfortunately, this nightmare place is the destination for thousands of people during the winter months.
Ice ice baby
It is this time of year when you are most at risk of getting injured. It is not difficult to work out why. While Dancing on Ice can loosely be called entertainment Falling on Ice certainly is not.
Whilst I understand that some people like to be fashionable and wear attractive things, sometimes practicality has to triumph over style – especially when the pavements are full of snow and ice.
Some people liven up the nation by wearing footwear with no grip and do the comical slipping as they totter along. Their arms wave wildly as they try to remain upright. It is funny to watch but not for them when they do fall and break their wrist or their ankle.
You then see them wearing an ankle support as they tell you that the reason they fell over was because of a rogue piece of black ice and not because they had been stupid at all.
Burns and scalds
Paradoxically heat in winter can be serious, especially for older people. In 2004 an 82 year old woman died when her hot water bottle leaked on her and she received nine percent burns. It is also more likely that scalds will occur as people increase the heat from the taps to compensate for the cold.
Off piste
If you are lucky enough to get away during the winter and on to the slopes you will be aware that many skiers suffer injuries.
This is mainly because of the pressure they put on their knees. More specifically they tend to injure their knee ligaments and I know skiers who suffer serious knee pain and have to wear ligament knee supports because of the damage they have done.
The skier tends to sprain either the medial collateral ligament or the anterior cruciate ligament. It will not be a surprise to learn that the faster the skier goes the more likely they are to get injured.
As Gandhi said, Ӕhere is more to life than increasing its speed.Ԝn
Warm up
When exercising you should always warm up but in winter your chances of injury increase if you do not warm up properly. It can lead to muscle strains and pulls that will leave you out of action for weeks.
Also if you are running make sure you run on flat surfaces in winter as it is harder to run on uneven terrain in the winter. This may seem obvious but the number of people who fall and hurt themselves by jogging off road is considerable.
Stay safe out there this winter!