Perhaps surprisingly, the home is the place where you are most likely to suffer an injury, with six thousand people a year dying in the UK as a result of accidents that have occurred within their own four walls. Who would have thought that was the case?!
We advise that you use the guide below to help you stay safe at home and prevent some of the most common accidents and injuries with a couple of helpful tips and tricks.
How to Stay Safe In Your Own Home: Top 6 Steps To Follow
1. Preventing Poisoning
Poisoning is one of the most common household accidents, believe it or not, but it is also one of the most easily preventable, simply by taking a few precautions. It also happens quite often to little kids who go around wandering our kitchen cupboards or beneath the bathroom sink.
Keep all medicines, cleaning products, and laundry detergents out of the reach of children and in their original packaging so that, if the worst happens, you can show the label to a medical practitioner to determine what exactly has been ingested. They will know how to react once they see the bottle and the ingredients of that product.
Before taking any medicine, or giving it to your children, read the label carefully to ensure that you are administering the correct dose and that you are aware of the length of time that needs to be left between doses. Be sure to properly dispose of any used medicines, including vitamins and supplements. Read the full article here for further ways to guard against poisoning accidents, as well as tips on how to avoid other common household injuries. Although children are the age group most affected by poisoning, fatalities from household poisoning are most likely to happen in the 25-44-year-old age group.
Finally, it is really important to install carbon monoxide alarms in your home and check them regularly to prevent the risk of being poisoned by this gas.
2. Try To Avoid Falls
Falls and slips are other common causes of injury in the home. Take steps to keep rooms, especially walkways and halls, free of clutter and anything else that could cause a fall, such as leads snaking on the floor or loose rugs with turned-up edges. Be especially mindful of things left on or near the stairs, and remove anything the moment you spot it. Make sure that the whole family is aware of the importance of this.
Remove or repair damaged flooring that poses a hazard, and think about adding ramps to areas of uneven flooring, especially in the home of an elderly person.
Handrails on the stairs and in the bathtub or shower are a good way of keeping these areas safe, and using non-slip mats in the tub and shower is also important.
3. Guarding Against Burns
Children are particularly at risk of burns in the home, but there are some easy measures that you can take to avoid this eventuality from happening. Firstly, make sure that all matches and lighters are safely locked away out of sight. Next, be vigilant about never leaving food cooking on the stove unattended and not leaving hot drinks where children could have access to them.
It’s very important to always test the bathtub water before allowing children to get in, and also to adjust your water heater so that the maximum water temperature will not exceed 120 degrees Fahrenheit.
4. Minimize The Risk Of Drowning
Drowning is the main cause of death in children aged 1 to 4 years old, according to a study by Stanford Children’s Health, with the threat of drowning in the bathtub a very real hazard in the home. It is vital to ensure that you never leave a child unattended – even for a second – while you’re bathing them, or while there is water in the tub.
If you have a pool or hot tub at home, make sure it is surrounded by four-sided isolation fences and is secured with self-closing and self-latching gates. If you have an above-ground pool, secure, lock, or remove the ladder or steps leading up to it to prevent children from gaining access. Learning to perform CPR is important, too. Invest a couple of minutes to inform yourself through a YouTube video on some of the most common CPR methods. It is always better to be safe than sorry.
5. Stay Safe And Far Away From Fire
Over two thousand people a year die as a result of unintentional house fires. The worst thing about fires is that they can happen and break out truly at random and unexpectedly. You should guard against this by installing smoke alarms and making sure that you regularly check them. Consider having fire extinguishers or a fire sprinkler system installed in your home. Make sure you inspect electrical wiring regularly for any signs of damage, and don’t keep combustible materials within a close range of a heat source; it’s also important not to run wiring around nails, under rugs, or in areas of high traffic.
This hazard and step are especially important for people who use wood for their main source of heat, such as with a fireplace. It is also good to inspect and check out your vents on a yearly basis just to make sure that everything falls into place and checks out.
6. Prevent Choking
Teaching children safe eating habits can reduce the risk of choking: for example, make sure your kids know to sit up straight while eating and to chew and swallow before speaking. Special care should be taken when offering certain types of food to young children, such as nuts, hard candy, sunflower seeds, popcorn, peas, celery, and raw carrots. Grapes and cheese cubes should also be served with caution, and young children should always be supervised while eating. Do not let them wander off to kitchen cabinets and pile themselves up with random foods.
Take further steps to reduce the risk of choking by checking that young children can’t pick up and put into their mouths items like coins, batteries, buttons, marbles, small balls, balloons, and small items of office stationery.
Learning the Heimlich maneuver is a really good idea so that you’ll know what to do if the worst happens.
7. Watch Out For Your Garden
Not only that you should keep your home clean and tidy and hazard-free, but also invest in your backyard or front garden maintenance. There’s a lot more to landscaping that one can do for his or her safe living. For instance, watch out for any old trees or wobbly branches that could get in your way. If you live somewhere where it can get quite cold and windy it is imperative to cut off any unstable branches since you don’t want to risk them falling on top of your roof or near your windows.
Also, keep trees and bushes neatly trimmed so that they can’t block the sightlines and give criminals a place to hide or peek into your home. This way, you will prevent potential burglaries from happening. For additional safety add extra security with plants such as thorny plants like hawthorn or roses by windows and other entry points. They will make your windows harder to access.
Do You Feel A Lot Safer Now?
So, how do you feel knowing these practical and popular tips and tricks for staying safe and sound within your own home? Apply some proper technique and invest in your safety and security, it is more than important for you long-run happy and calm stress-free surrounding and living.
