Home, Unsafe Home

(AP)  Home, sweet home is not always home, safe home.

That is the upshot of a report being released Thursday that found that home accidents caused 20,000 deaths and nearly 13 million injuries in the United States each year. The unintentional injuries cost roughly $380 billion each year in lost wages, medical costs and other expenses.

"People are in danger or at risk at home. They may not know it, but there are hidden hazards," said David Oliver, president of the Home Safety Council, a nonprofit organization in Wilkesboro, N.C.

The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill's Injury Prevention Research Center was commissioned by the council to do a study on home safety. The report found the leading cause of death and injury in homes is falls, followed by poisonings, fires, inhalations (mostly smoke), suffocations and drowning.

Those 64 and older were most likely to die or be injured in a fall.

Roughly 6,750 people die from falls each year and about 5,750 from poisonings, according to the report based on statistics from the federal government and a random survey of 1,003 households nationwide.

"If my plane crashed with 50 people on board, it would have been headlines in the paper. Just because these (injuries or deaths) happen one at a time in individual homes, I think people forget about the problem," said Carol Runyan, who headed the study.

Many accidents are preventable. Recommendations in the report include:

Ensuring entryways, halls and stairways are well-lit.

Making sure smoke alarms work.

Develop a fire escape plan.

Placing safety rails and nonskid strips or a suction mat in bath tubs and showers.

Installing a carbon monoxide detector.

Place extension, telephone and lamp cords out of high traffic areas.

Keep household chemicals and medicines locked up and away from children.

The release of the report was to coincide with the opening of the council's interactive exhibit on the National Mall in Washington. The exhibit offers a virtual home designed to teach families how to detect and correct home safety hazards.

The exhibit is also slated for display in Maryland, South Carolina, Washington and Colorado.

The Home Safety Council was founded by Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse in 1993 but is now an independent nonprofit organization.


By Siobhan McDonough