Can Disaster Happen to You?

Ask any of the 315,000 daily visitors to Emergency Rooms across America, and very few will tell you that they expected to be there. While we may think that accidents or natural disasters will never occur on our watch, none of us is impervious. Consider a breakdown of average daily ER trauma cases:

Auto accident injuries 6,171

Auto accident deaths 120

Dog bites 1,056

Unintentional child poisonings 236

Firearm injuries 192

Firearm deaths 72

Choking children treated 48

Residential fire injuries 31

Residential fire deaths 6

Accidental drowning deaths 9

Weather-related injuries 6

Weather-related deaths 1.3

Electric shock deaths 3

(Sources: The Survivor’s Club by Ben Sherwood, U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, National Weather Service)

 Happily, there are steps each of us can take to prevent and prepare for these events. In fact, the C.D.C. recently found that in nonmetropolitan areas like ours, 57.5% of deaths from unintentional injury are potentially preventable (Source: MMWR 1/13/17). There is also help to recover when calamity can’t be avoided. The American Red Cross and Richland County Disaster & Emergency Services are teaming up again this year to equip you with resources to survive and thrive through disaster. At this year’s Richland County Fair, we will have a new home in the nice cool event center. Stop by each day to answer quiz questions for a chance to win some great prizes! Let’s work together for a more resilient Richland County!