FALLS KILL MAJORITY B.C. LUMBER WORKER Preliminary tabulations of a follow-up study on home accident fatalities conducted in co-operation with 16 State Offices of Vital Statistics have been compiled by the Na- tional Safety Council utilizing a special questionnaire de- veloped by the public health service. While the figures can- not be interpreted as a probability sample because the par- ticipating States are not representative of the country as a whole and because completeness of reporting and follow- up were not systematic throughout, some interesting in- formation has been accumulated. from the papers submitted with the death claim such as the death certificate, physician’s statement, coroner’s inquest report, hospital report, and newspaper items. Often the information is collect- ed by an investigator. Home Deaths Of the total of 2,198 home ac- cident deaths in a 2-year period (1953-1954), 1,060 deaths were in the home. Death Total FALLS - 19,800 ALL ACCIDENT DEATHS, 1955 --------- - 93,000 Over 20 percent of these deaths were from falls, and over 70 percent of all accidental deaths from falls occur Change from 1954 % Population Death Rate* 10.2 Ss a POPULATION ~C DEATH RATE 25-44 1,300 15-24 300 0 AGE — DEATHS — 0-4 400 5-14 200 }Deaths per 100,000 population in cach age group. occurring in cataclysms. Falls are the leading cause of non-motor-vehicle and over. i ‘ ALL HOME ACCIDENT DEATHS - - - - - About one-half of all home accident deaths were from falls. faea! FALLS 1 *Per 100,000 population, adjusted to the age distribution of the population in 1940. Includes all fall deaths except those in or from railway-, road-, water-, or air-transport vehicles, or those * 65& OVER 14,700 45-64 2,900 accidental deaths of persons 45 years ---- - 28,000 Death Total 4,000 Population Death Rate* 8.5 9 ry POPULATION DEATH RATE* 0 G2 = Ox} DEATHS — 400 Deaths per 100,000 population. Deaths per 100,000 population in cach age group. 25-44 250 15-24 50 5-14 100 Changes in deaths were: from 1954, +1%; from 1949, —15%. departments. More than half the falls of elderly people are on the same level; less than half from one level to another. The above approximations were taken from the 1956 edition of ACCIDENT FACTS, published by the National Safety Council and compiled by the council’s Statistics Di- vision based on data from the National Office of Vital Statistics and State health 65 & OVER 1,000 12, 200 attributed to falls, or about 50 from porches, beds, windows, lad- ders, and other specified and un- ) specified agencies. Metropolitan feels that the ) high incidence of falls on stairs | and steps may be due to the fre- quency of this type of accident to older persons and that older people account to an even greater degree for the number of falls while walking or standing on the level. This is attributed to the large amount of time older folks spend at home, their increased suscep- tibility to falls because of vari- ous physical impairments, and to the fact that the injuries result- ing from falls are more serious in the elderly. Falls off the job are of im- portance and concern to indus- try. According to data received from companies reporting to the Off-the-Job Committee of the In- dustrial Safety Conference, this type of fall alone caused more lost time injuries and almost half as many days lost as all of the work injuries reported by the same companies for the same period of time. conditio INTEREST ini welfare, One Group One group, employing more than 100,000 people, showed the following experience for the first 9 months of 1956: Employee-months exposure .... 922,022 ; Total number of lost WILLINGNE time OTJ injuries........ 2,366 Total number of lost time work injuries...... 464 Total number of lost days due to OTS injuries ... Total number of lost days due to work injuries Number of OTJ falls causing lost time. 715 Number of home falls causing lost time.... 489 Number of public falls causing lost time........ 226 Number of days lost due to OTJ falls....... 14,049 Number of days lost due to home falls........_ 9,293 | Number of days lost due to public falls....... 4,756 A second group involving 1,- 037,901 employee-months show- ed the following off-the-job accident experience: Total number of lost time O-T-J injuries... 2,046 Total number of lost days due to O-T-J injuries ... & Number of O-T-J falls Of the total of 8,969 fatal home accidents, 4,410 were at- tributed to falls. Table 1 repre- sents a breakdown of these fall deaths by age group, sex, and by differentiation between falls from higher levels and falls on the same level. Even Closet People were killed by falls in every room in the house, includ- ing the closet! The largest num- per of fatal falls happened in the bedroom (1,266), including both falls from a higher level and falls on the same level. In addition to bedroom® falls, in the order of their importance falls occurred in the living room (419), kitchen (418), yard (303), bathroom (202), porch (197), hall (165), dining room (139), basement (14), and closet (1). Eleven fatal falls were not clas- sified above as they occurred in one-room apartments. On the Level One thousand five hundred and sixty-two péople fell while walk- ing on the level, 526 while walk- ing on stairs, 135 while doing housework, 133 while sleeping or lying down, and 43 while doing outdoor maintenance work such as painting, washing windows, curred during the act of rising or sitting, 148 while sitting, and 204 while standing. Fatal Handicaps Only 1,993 fatal falls, or about 45 percent, occurred to people who were not handicapped in some way. Feebleness or un- steadiness contributed to 965 deaths from falls, of which 786 were falls on the same level. Other contributory handicaps were heart, circulatory, or vas- cular disease, 331; lameness, 234; other chronic disease, 229; par- alysis, cerebral palsy, 214; poor eyesight, 127; blindness in one or both eyes, 128. Met. Life Ins. Co. Statistics Metropolitan Life Insurance Company occasfonally publishes statistics about home accidents as compiled from death claims submitted from their approxi- mately 18 million Industrial policyholders, ages 1-74 years. About three-fifths are females, and about one-eighth ‘are colored persons. ‘ For the most part policyholders are members of wage-earning families in the middle and lower income brackets residing in ur- ban areas of the United States and Canada. Detailed information about these accidents is obtained ete.). A total of 711 falls oc- causing lost time.. percent. Of these fall deaths, 38 percent occurred while walking on stairs and steps, 21 percent while walking about or standing on the floor, and the remainder Number of home falls causing lost time........ Number of public falls causing lost time. e. JUST 10 REMIWO ACWEME HOPPE WERE SOU LET EXPE Workmen's Goi tosT: Tle OF RIGHT INDEX FINGER. HEAR MACHINE WHICH FORMER, owe Wis OG nus ICE (Oil, FINDER PLERSE Bhd Bere ene, WEA FOOLISH MAW WHO GETS THEI TO Olt. A MACHINE WHMLE ITS IW MO