Horror Movies: Halloween Time!

Horror Movies: Halloween Time!

Since Halloween is my favorite holiday and around the corner, I thought I would share some informational causes of death….Fun Stuff!

If you’ve ever watched (and lost sleep over) one of the Final Destination movies, you know how lethal pretty much anything in your surroundings can be. The movies aren’t entirely ridiculous… between the ages of 1 and 45, the leading cause of death in America is unintentional injury.

Unintentional injuries are the cause of 29 million visits to the Emergency Room every year; the 25-44 demographic visits the ER more often than any other group except those over 65 and under 1 years old.

Watch your back!

If you’re a millennial, here are 6 of the most common and bizarre injuries you should keep an eye out for:

  1. Common Injuries: In the category of non-deadly injuries, accidental falls, overexertion, getting hit by something or someone, and car accidents take the top 5 (in that order). It’s important to know that in 30% of car accidents someone is taken to the ER to be further checked out. Among those people, 10% get some kind of suture, imaging, or wound care done. 8% get admitted.
  2. Bites & Stings: Bites and stings are such a problem that they are the 8th most common cause of injury among 24-44 year-olds, with dog bites alone in the top 20. If your walk home includes evading vicious dogs, know this: dog bites lead to 316,000 ER visits annually. Fifteen percent end in a hospital stay with an average cost of $18,000! Even if you don’t get admitted, you may require wound closure, antibiotics, or immunizations.
  3. ATVs: Next time you’re about to rev up an ATV on vacation or in your backyard, consider this: each year there are over 100,000 visits to the ER because of ATVs. Almost half those injuries happen on the weekend, most commonly on paved surfaces, and to 27 year-olds. 15% of ATV injuries end up in admission to a hospital with an average cost of $13,000.
  4. Bicycles: Coming in at the 14th most common cause of injuries, there are over 515,000 visits to the ER every year because of bicycle related accidents, or 1,400 each day. 1-in-10 of these involve a collision with a car, and 6% can lead to a hospital stay. On top of the fractures and head injury that might need an X-ray, a hospital stay for bicycle related injuries could cost $10,000 (or $1800 when cars are involved).
  5. Poisoning/Drug Overdoses: Causing more deaths than car accidents, unintentional poisoning and drug overdoses are the number 1 cause of accidental deaths among 25-44 year olds, and among the top-10 causes of non-fatal injury. These kinds of injuries can require a lot of test work including toxin screens, heart monitoring, and blood or urine tests, not to mention the treatments and support care can be expensive. A hospital stay can be upwards of 3 days and cost more than $5,000.
  6. Air and Paintball Guns: Last time I checked, zombie paintball arenas were cropping up everywhere for Halloween. Now, here’s a harrowing fact: 12% of paintball and air gun related injuries involve someone over 25, and there’s a tiny but real (3.5%) chance that you could end up being admitted to the hospital. Sure, this kind of injury is highly rare, but watch where you aim!

Stay safe!

So what’s the moral of the story? Us ‘young and invincible’ face a perilous world, but it’s no cause for panic. Stay adventurous, but plan on being safe, too. And remember, safety goes beyond wearing seat belts and evading dogs; it includes protecting your finances that could take a hit from big hospital bills. Not insured for 2016? Contact me at TREK!

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