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 Investigators used a national database to look at emergency
department visits for nonfatal injuries from power saws and axes
between 2006 and 2016. During that period, there were 16,384 visits
for power saw injuries and 1,866 for injuries involving axes.
About half of all injuries in both groups involved the fingers and
hand, and 65% occurred at home.
“Weekend woodsmen” put power saws and axes to work at home, but
“they don't use the proper protective gear that the industry would
require, and that's why we see these types of injuries,” Dr. David
Farcy of the Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, Florida, who
is president-elect of the American Academy of Emergency Medicine,
told Reuters Health by phone.
Dr. Matthew Hernandez and Dr. Johnathon Aho and colleagues at the
Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, report in the American Journal
of Emergency Medicine that an “overwhelming majority” of patients
sustained lacerations from power saw use.
This type of injury, they say, is typically associated with the
“kickback” phenomenon, in which a rotating chain comes into contact
with a hard object, eliciting a sudden and powerful opposing force
strong enough to cause the saw to ‘kickback’ toward the individual
operating the device.
“Our body is no match for these power tools,” said Dr. Ryan Stanton,
a spokesman for the American College of Emergency Physicians who
wasn’t involved in the study. “We have had a number of folks with
bad outcomes after someone was injured and wasn’t found for
hours/days.”
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“Use safety glasses, gloves, and never disengage safety guards on
the equipment. I see this more often in professionals so they can
'work faster,'” he said in an email.
The researchers also highlighted injuries sustained due to the
mechanics of axe swinging. The swinging motion, which serves to
increase momentum and to generate additional force when striking an
object, predisposes users to back, shoulder, elbow, wrist and hand
injuries.
Among the limitations of the study is that the database didn’t
capture information on people who died from power saw or ax injuries
before reaching a hospital.
Furthermore, people who sustained less severe and complex injuries
may have chosen to self-treat their wounds and not seek professional
medical care.
Farcy, who also wasn’t involved in the study, pointed out that the
report didn’t include data on eye injuries from flying debris.
Stanton cautioned non-professionals against undertaking high-risk
jobs, such as felling large trees.
“Know your equipment,” he said. “Don’t swing out of your league.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2C2z6hS American Journal of Emergency
Medicine, online January 16, 2018.
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