Ok trhis is long but its worth the read. From Bill Bryson's "I'm a Stranger Here Myself" - relevant section emboldened if you cant be bothered to read the whole thing.
WELL, DOCTOR, I WAS JUST TRYING TO LIE DOWN. . .
Here's a fact for you: According to the latest Statistical Abstract of the United States, every year more than
400,000 Americans suffer injuries involving beds, mattresses, or pillows. Think about that for a minute.
That is almost 2,000 bed, mattress, or pillow injuries a day. In the time it takes you to read this article, four
of my fellow citizens will somehow manage to be wounded by their bedding.
My point in raising this is not to suggest that we are somehow more inept than the rest of the world when it
comes to lying down for the night (though clearly there are thousands of us who could do with additional
practice), but rather to observe that there is scarcely a statistic to do with this vast and scattered nation that
doesn't in some way give one pause.
I had this brought home to me the other day when I was in the local library looking up something else
altogether in the aforesaid Abstract and happened across "Table No. 206: Injuries Associated with
Consumer Products." I have seldom passed a more diverting half hour.
Consider this intriguing fact: Almost 50,000 people in the United States are injured each year by pencils,
pens, and other desk accessories. How do they do it? I have spent many long hours seated at desks where I
would have greeted almost any kind of injury as a welcome diversion, but never once have I come close to
achieving actual bodily harm.
So I ask again: How do they do it? These are, bear in mind, injuries severe enough to warrant a trip to an
emergency room. Putting a staple in the tip of your index finger (which I have done quite a lot, sometimes
only semi-accidentally) doesn't count. I am looking around my desk now and unless I put my head in the
laser printer or stab myself with the scissors I cannot see a single source of potential harm within ten feet.
But then that's the thing about household injuries if Table No. 206 is any guide-they can come at you from
almost anywhere. Consider this one. In 1992 (the latest year for which figures are available) more than 400,000
people in the United States were injured by chairs, sofas, and sofa beds. What are we to make of
this? Does it tell us something trenchant about the design of modern furniture or merely that we
have become exceptionally careless sitters?
What is certain is that the problem is worsening. The number of chair,
sofa, and sofa bed . injuries showed an increase of 30,000 over the previous year, which is quite a worrying
trend even for those of us who are frankly fearless with regard to soft furnishings. (That may, of course, be
the nub of the problem-overconfidence.)
Predictably, "stairs, ramps, and landings" was the most lively category, with almost two million startled
victims, but in other respects dangerous objects were far more benign than their reputations might lead you
to predict. More people were injured by sound-recording equipment (46,022) than by skateboards (44,068),
trampolines (43,655), or even razors and razor blades (43,365). A mere 16,670 overexuberant choppers
ended up injured by hatchets and axes, and even saws and chainsaws claimed a relatively modest 38,692
victims.
Paper money and coins (30,274) claimed nearly as many victims as did scissors (34,062). I can just about
conceive of how you might swallow a dime and then wish you hadn't ("You guys want to see a neat
trick?"), but I cannot for the life of me construct hypothetical circumstances involving folding money and a
subsequent trip to the ER. It would be interesting to meet some of these people.
I would also welcome a meeting with almost any of the 263,000 people injured by ceilings, walls, and
inside panels. I can't imagine being hurt by a ceiling and not having a story worth hearing. Likewise, I
could find time for any of the 31,000 people injured by their "grooming devices."
But the people I would really like to meet are the 142,000 hapless souls who received emergency room
treatment for injuries inflicted by their clothing. What can they be suffering from? Compound pajama
fracture? Sweatpants hematoma? I am powerless to speculate.
I have a friend who is an orthopedic surgeon, and he told me the other day that one of the incidental
occupational hazards of his job is that you get a skewed sense of everyday risks since you are constantly
repairing people who have come a cropper in unlikely and unpredictable ways. (Only that day he had
treated a man who had had a moose come through the windshield of his car, to the consternation of both.)
Suddenly, thanks to Table No. 206, I began to see what he meant.
Interestingly, what had brought me to the Statistical Abstract in the first place was the wish to look up
crime figures for the state of New Hampshire, where I now live. I had heard that it is one of the safest
places in America, and indeed the Abstract bore this out. There were just four murders in the state in the
latest reporting year-compared with over 23,000 for the country as a whole-and very little serious crime.
All that this means, of course, is that statistically in New Hampshire I am far more likely to be hurt by my
ceiling or underpants-to cite just two potentially lethal examples-than by a stranger, and, frankly, I don't
find that comforting at all.
