Lown Cardiovascular Research Foundation

Ice sends many slip-sliding into ERs: helmet law urged for young sledders

by Michael Levenson, Globe Staff
The Boston Globe
February 21, 2007

There was the woman who went flying 8 feet into the air on an inner tube and crash-landed in a frozen marsh. There was the dad who slipped and bruised his ribs while shoveling, then burned himself after he fell asleep on a heating pad. Then there was the elderly man on blood-thinning medication who bled profusely after slipping on the ice and cutting his head.

Across the region, young and old alike have been streaming into emergency rooms with broken wrists, fractured legs, cracked ribs, crushed fingers, concussions, sore backs, and bleeding heads since last week's ice storm turned the region into a rock-hard, slick obstacle course. Formerly gentle slopes for sledding are creating speeds that approach those of luge runs. Sledders who crash are finding out the hard way that ice is unforgiving. And pedestrians on sidewalks are not faring much better.

Boston Medical Center has treated about 40 people who broke bones and bruised bodies on the ice in the last week. Massachusetts General Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center have treated about 30 people each day who have fallen on the ice, and Newton-Wellesley Hospital has treated another 20 to 30 people a day since last Wednesday's storm. Officials say the numbers are twice as high as during a normal winter week.

"We've seen a dramatic increase," said Dr. Ron Walls , chairman of emergency medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, who said he has noted a particularly worrisome increase in the number of elderly falling and injuring their heads on icy sidewalks and stairs. "The reason is the ice is just so slick."

Another reason for the increase, officials say, is that the icing of the region, unlike other kinds of extreme weather such as a blizzard, is not keeping people confined. People are going about their business and in some cases seeking thrills on frozen fields and hard, high hills that offer the fastest runs.

The deluge of injuries is spurring a push for legislation to make children wear helmets while skiing or sledding, modeled after a similar law requiring protective headgear for young bicyclists, inline skaters, and skateboarders.

Locally, the most serious injury happened Sunday at the Mount Hood Golf Course in Melrose, where the woman who had gone sledding with her children crashed on an inner tube. The 39-year-old woman, whose name has not been released, was flown by helicopter to Massachusetts General Hospital, where she was treated for head trauma, injuries to her back and leg, and hypothermia. It was the second injury at the course over the weekend and city officials shut the park and posted a police officer there to keep children and parents away. Signs there already warn them that they sled at their own risk.

To read more about ice-related risks, click on the article link above.