About 15,000 people visit the emergency room each year due to accidents with holiday decorations such as artificial trees, ornaments and lights.
Many people enjoy a Christmas drink during the holidays, so it’s no surprise that 40 percent of all holiday accidents in adults involve alcohol, according to doctors.
Some of the more bizarre injuries sustained over the years include a 50-year-old American woman who was found on a chair with Christmas lights on it.
She fell and hit her rectum against the branches, causing a painful laceration.
Another incident involved a four-year-old girl putting a metal bell in her ear so she could hear “Jingle Bells.”
Around 15,000 people go to the emergency room each year due to accidents with Christmas decorations (archive image)
According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, there are approximately 160 holiday decoration-related injuries each day during the holidays, with four out of 10 resulting from falls.
During the past holiday season – between November 1, 2021 and January 31, 2022 – approximately 14,800 people were treated in hospital emergency rooms for injuries related to holiday decorations.
Over the years, this has included a 28-year-old woman who was hanging a piece of jewelry when the barstool slid under her, causing vaginal trauma on the landing.
A 36-year-old man accidentally swallowed a thumbtack when he looked up and sneezed while putting up Christmas decorations, while a 64-year-old woman sprained her ankle after dropping a four-foot tall wooden Santa on it.
Meanwhile, researchers from Australia and Germany found that 277 children were injured by Santa impersonators in America between 2007 and 2016.
This included three children who had to go to the emergency room after “falling off Santa’s lap” and another child who had to go to the emergency room after falling while trying to run away because they were very afraid of Santa.
Researchers examined emergency response data involving Christmas product-related injuries between 2007 and 2016 in the United States.
The study was published in the journal Advances in Integrative Medicine in 2018.
Three children went to the emergency room after “falling off Santa’s lap” and another child went to the emergency room after falling while trying to run away from Santa because he was very scared (stock photo)
A CT scan of the man showed four whole mints in his stomach (pictured left). Christmas sweets displayed next to a scale for size comparison (pictured right)
Research from Canada found that people who injured themselves while putting up Christmas lights spent an average of 15 days in hospital and, sadly, five percent of those injured died. The average age of the patients was 55 years.
In 2017, an 86-year-old man from Virginia went to the emergency room during the last week of December with severe stomach pain.
A CT scan of his abdomen showed several small round objects in his stomach.
His wife remembered getting mints for Christmas.
The man had no teeth, so he swallowed the candy whole.
Since the man was suffering from other illnesses, the doctors decided it was best not to operate on him, but instead just give him comfort care.
The case was published in the Journal of Emergency Medicine.
In Nottingham, UK, a woman’s fingertip was chopped off in a mailbox while delivering Christmas cards.
The week before Christmas, a 59-year-old woman cut the tip of the middle finger on her left hand while putting cards with “razor-sharp” edges into a neighbor’s mailbox.
The doctors wrote in the British Journal of Plastic Surgery: “The mechanism of injury was that the spring-loaded valve of the letter box clicked on the finger when the card was pushed through.”
“The natural reaction to the finger getting caught was to quickly withdraw the hand.” The sharp edge of the mailbox then served as a knife to amputate the fingertip.
Doctors attached the amputated finger with a piece of skin further down the finger and the woman was able to recover quickly.
An X-ray of the girl’s chest showed Christmas lights in her left lung (pictured left). The LED Christmas light bulb that decorated her family’s tree was removed from her lungs (pictured right)
In France, a 14-month-old girl inhaled an LED light originally used to decorate her family’s Christmas tree.
The baby, whose name is unknown, developed coughing and wheezing in the run-up to Christmas 2017.
Doctors suspected she had asthma and gave her medication to combat her symptoms. However, they did not work.
Three weeks later, medical tests revealed a U-shaped foreign body in her left lung, alarming surgeons.
The object turned out to be an LED lamp. The removal was done using a bronchoscope – a flexible tube with a camera and a light at the end.
Her parents, presumably from Marseille, then realized it was coming from their Christmas tree because they lacked a lamp.
The little girl, whose story was published in Respiratory Medicine Case Reports, recovered well after the procedure.
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Crystal Leahy is an author and health journalist who writes for The Fashion Vibes. With a background in health and wellness, Crystal has a passion for helping people live their best lives through healthy habits and lifestyles.
