- What? Falling coconuts.
What? Come on, no way.
Shoveling snow, constipation and even escalators.
Today we are breaking down some more unusual things
that cause people way more injury and death
than one may realize.
Do you agree with this list?
Way in with your thoughts.
Alright, let's dive right in.
Number one, tripping, that is correct.
Tripping is a significant mechanism
to how somebody could actually die.
But how? Why?
People who typically are falling in general
have difficulty with balance
and then they may not know that they're tripping
and they crack their head open
and they have major head traumas
including intracranial bleeding such as a subdural epidural
or subarachnoid hemorrhage and all of this bleeding
within the brain significantly increases mortality.
Then also morbidity relating to traumatic brain injuries.
More than 9 million people come to the emergency department
every year for tripping related injuries.
So I definitely agree with this one.
Please be careful out there.
And sorry for when you come to the emergency department
and we throw that hard C-collar on your neck,
it's to protect your spine.
Number two, mozzarella sticks.
Mozzarella sticks statistically is one
of the most choked on foods.
Who doesn't love mozzarella sticks out there?
But I can see how really cheesy nice fried thing chewing
that people can choke on.
And we actually see a lot in the emergency department
where people end up not chewing their food
as well as they should which we call mastication
then end up getting stuck in their esophagus
and their choking.
So you can almost choke in two different ways.
Choking, you can basically get it occluded into your airway
versus actually getting it stuck in your esophagus.
So we see a lot of people who get food stuck
in their esophagus mostly big pieces of meat,
they get stuck in there
but you're not able to swallow anything
and you drool and everything comes right back up.
Different mechanisms but you know if it closes your airway
you can't breathe.
It needs to get out of there using the Heimlich maneuver.
If it get stuck in your lungs,
we'll call a pulmonologist, they'll do a bronchoscopy,
get it out of there and if it's stuck in your esophagus
we'll call it gastroenterologist
and they'll do an upper endoscopy to get it out of there.
Have you guys ever choked on anything?
Let me know in the comments.
Number three, cheerleading.
So cheerleading has had a history of some rare
kind of weird deaths and I can imagine it's related
to head injury as well as cervical spine injury.
So could it happen?
Yeah, probably, but have I ever seen that happen?
No, I've seen people who have fallen
from great heights and they've injured themselves,
but have never actually seen a cheerleader come in
due to a cervical spine injury
or a traumatic brain injury
that could occur from being dropped on your head.
Number four, constipation.
Constipation leads to diverticulosis
which leads to diverticulitis or colitis
which are inflammation and infections of your colon.
It can also cause bowel obstructions.
It can cause and lead to further things down the road
potentially there's some potential connection
of colorectal cancers.
Please make sure that you're getting all the excrement
out of your body and that you are regular.
We see so many people that come to the emergency department
with abdominal pain and at the end of the day
it's usually related to significant constipation.
And people will even say,
"Hey I go to the bathroom at least once a day
or once every other day but they're like a rabbit dropping."
So we do a CT scan and bam your whole colon is full of poop
and you're getting a lot of gas pressure
and peristalsis discomfort and that's why your pain
is always there and then it gets worse and then
it comes down and it's still there painful
and then it gets worse and then it comes down.
It's 'cause the intestines are moving.
If you add fevers, sweating and blood to that,
get to the hospital and get checked out ASAP.
But even then if you have abdominal pain
you don't feel well get to the hospital
and get checked out even if it is constipation.
Number five, escalators.
Holy cow, you ever look at those escalators
they have those like jagged, nasty spiky things
right at the end of each stair
because of how it actually like circulates.
But man those are not potentially deadly of what I seen.
I see people come in scraped and fall
but you can definitely fall down, it's metal.
And the biggest thing you always worry about
obviously is intracranial bleeding, cervical fractures.
But more common injuries that we do see are related
to like abrasions and lacerations due to escalators.
Have you guys ever injured yourself on an escalator?
Let me know in the comments.
Number six, shoveling snow.
Yes for all you out there who shovel snow please be careful
'cause cardiovascular disease gets accentuated.
Coronary artery disease will actually rear its ugly head
causing people to have cardiac arrest due
to myocardial infarction or MIs AKA heart attacks.
Because you get dumped on with a ton of snow
you're going out there, you're trying to shovel it
getting it outta the way, but you're doing a ton
of cardiovascular exercise to which your body's
probably not used to and you're putting so much strain
on your heart which then can dislodge one of those plaques
off of the vessels within the coronary vessels
and then cause a big inclusion causing a heart attack
and could kill you.
If you are in an area where you need to shovel lots of snow
please make sure that you're able to do that.
And if you're not, maybe think of other means.
Have somebody come do it for you.
Get a truck to come in with a plow
or invest in one of those snow blowers out there.
Number seven, water.
What? Water.
Okay, think about this.
So we all need water.
We know we need water, but too much water isn't good.
Too little water isn't good.
If you swallow too much water,
maybe inhale it, you could actually die.
So think about it this way, if you have way too much water
in your system, you're actually diluting
out your electrolytes, which are electrolytes have to do
with so many different things than just like,
I need electrolytes 'cause I'm sweating so much.
But it has to do with a lot of the different mechanisms
on a cellular level relating to how everything works.
Our cells have these different transporters
and different things on the cell membranes
that have to do with action potential
and all these other things where like the hydrogen
and sodiums and calciums and potassium,
all these different things are going in and outta cells
and if you don't have it in appropriate ratios
it actually will be detrimental to you.
And it's the same thing if you inhale too much water
into your lungs because you're flailing around
in the water and you can't swim
that can also kill you because you can't breathe.
So please be careful.
It's essential for life but it could also take your life.
Number eight, falling coconuts.
Interesting, I've never seen a falling coconut injury
but I can imagine if a coconut falls out of a nice big,
beautiful tree and cracks you on the head in the right spot,
you could probably crack your skull.
You could probably cause some intracranial bleeding
and may end up killing you
because of too much bleeding in your brain
or maybe even causing a high cervical fracture
because of the weight of the coconut
and how it hits your head.
Just remember those coconuts could be a deadly weapon
if they're just falling out of the tree
and nail you right on the head.
Number nine, champagne corks.
Oh my gosh.
Okay, these things, I don't know if some of you out there
have popped a bottle of champagne
or using a saber to pop it off
but they're coming out pretty fast.
Hit you in the eye.
Cause traumatic eye injuries.
Outside if the pressure is so much that it hits you
on the side of the head and causes a vascular bleed,
you're already at risk of having some sort of injury
to the head.
But if it hits on the side of your head, maybe,
but I don't know, that would be like the most high pressure
cork launching injury ever.
So if it hits you on the eye, it could enucleate your eye
basically your, the globe, which we call the eye.
It could, but definitely just like rupture
and you could lose your eye
and that would increase morbidity.
It would change your life all in one quick moment.
But my best friend's an ophthalmologist,
I don't think he's ever seen a cor in the eye injury either.
What other random things out there
should have made the list but didn't?
Let me know in the comments.
But I hopefully you guys enjoyed this.
You'll learn something.
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