Transcription:
Dr. Taruna Crawford Shares Injury Prevention During the Holidays

Sean O'Connor:  Riverside Health   Riverside Health puts the health and wellness information you need well within reach.

Host: Tell us little bit of your background in orthopedics.

Guest: I joined Riverside in 2018. Prior to that, I was practicing in the suburbs. I have done my training in orthopedic surgery and additional subspecialty training in hand and upper extremity surgery. I did my college and medical school at Northwestern University. I subsequently went to Cincinnati for my orthopedic training and Philadelphia for my hand fellowship training.

Host: Fantastic. That's excellent. So, you're well-versed in hands and everything that goes with them. And so with the holidays right around the corner, we've got Thanksgiving here, what are some general injuries that you see coming from the holiday, the Thanksgiving time of year?

Guest: We do have a number of injuries that can occur associated with the holiday. Frequently, most of those are related to cooking, carving. A lot of people play football games with their family, and so we can sometimes have family injuries with sports. We can have people as they're traveling to see family members, sometimes lifting heavy bags. There's a number of travel safety tips we can offer.

And then of course, around this time of year, we also start having some transition in the weather. And so sometimes people get some early snow and that first snow happens around November when some of snowblower accidents occur.

Host: Oh, okay. I didn't even think about that right now because you don't realize it's cold until the snow actually hits you right in the face there that first day. So, when we talk about injuries, we're talking about with snow shoveling, are we talking about slips and falls and jamming fingers and stuff like that? Or is it more severe?

Guest: Yeah, so they can be like more of the mundane things that we worry about as far as slip and falls with icy rain, particularly in our area. In the Chicago land area, we know one day it could be kind of warm, the next day could be really cold. One day it could rain, the next day it could be icy. And so, having hazardous walkways or having snow on the ground is not an uncommon thing around the end of November. A lot of times also you'll get some of those heavy, wet snowfall that can occur. And if you're bringing your snowblower out, in particular that heavy, wet, icy snow is more likely to jam in that snowblower and snowblower injuries can be very devastating injuries.

Host: Oh, yeah. I never really considered snowblower injuries, so that's a whole new thing to even think about. And so what is the corrective action when you see a snowblower injury? Is surgery almost always going to be something that occurs or is there something that is also done? What are kind of the options that the patients would see?

Guest: So the thing that we always worry about with snowblower injuries, you worry about getting a finger caught in a snowblower. And so, the biggest thing to remember is that wet, icy heavy snow, that can sometimes fall earlier in the winter season as we're making that transition, is more likely to jam the snowblower and get the blades clogged. And so the key thing is that you always want to-- when the blades stop, they can sometimes act like a spring and it doesn't necessarily always deactivate the blades in the chute area. So if you have something and you're trying to kind of reach down and unclog, you can get the jam unclogged, but then that makes the blades start back up into motion again. And it can cause some pretty serious injuries, devastating injuries, amputation of the fingertips, lacerations, and these are preventable injuries.

And so the biggest thing to remember, the best thing you can do to make sure you take a precaution and if a snowblower jams, you want to make sure that you turn off the power. Before you try to stick your hand in there or something like that, before you try to do anything, turn off the power because if those blades unclog and they start whirling, you don't have time to pull your hand out of there. Even if you were to pull your hand out, your glove or something can get caught and kind of pull your hand back in again when those blades go.

So the other thing is you should never use your hands to try to unclog the snowblower. So what you want to do is turn off your snowblower and then you can use either a big tree branch or you can use a broom handle to get the snow kind of broken up and loose in order to unclog it. And the final thing is, that you want to wear safety glasses when you're unclogging the blower, because you don't know what's in there that's clogging it up. And when it starts back up again, it can spit something out and hit you in the face. And if it's something sharper like a piece of ice or a rock or something, that can cause some damage to your face.

And obviously, you should not be using a snowblower if you've been drinking, because that really impairs your judgment as far as how to manage the snowblower. And so those are some risks that can occur around this time of year, kind of just seasonally that you can watch out for around Thanksgiving.

Host: Yeah. That makes a good point. It's always easier to replace a broom handle, far cheaper to replace a broom handle than to replace fingers because fingers, so I've been told, do not grow back.

Guest: They do not grow back. Sometimes they can be attached back, but it's never the same.

Host: Yeah. Going back to the travel, what you see with baggage, what are some kind of injuries that you see with baggage and people traveling?

Guest: Yeah. So even before you even get now-- we've talked about the weather, now let's talk about even getting to wherever you're traveling to for your Thanksgiving celebrations. You want to consider environment, weather-related issues of your travel, make sure you plan extra times to travel if there's going to be inclement weather. You want to try to avoid hazardous conditions. When you are traveling, you want to make sure that you take an opportunity depending upon how long you're going to be driving, to take some light stretching breaks, get out of the car, walk around. You don't want to get a blood clot from sitting in the car for too long.

If you're traveling by plane, which I know right now, no pun intended, everything is up in the air with COVID. You know, the thing to watch out for, as you're traveling with air travel, is people will frequently bring on carry-on luggage for these shorter trips. So one of those things that we want to make sure is as you're traveling for airplanes, you want to watch out for that heavy overloaded luggage and doing things that might potentially injure your shoulder or your neck or your back, because you know, neck and back and sprains and strains are common injuries that people can have. And certainly, lugging around heavy baggage is not going to help that. So if you're traveling by plane or even if you're traveling by car and you're loading up the roof rack, rather than having one big, heavy luggage, it's better to have multiple smaller pieces of light luggage if you can.

If you do have kind of heavier luggage, you want to make sure that you're being very careful as you're lifting it. You want to stand right next to your luggage, bend at your knees, not bending 90 degrees at your waist, but bending more down with your knees, lifting with your leg muscles rather than lifting with your back. And you don't want to twist your spine as you're pushing up into an overhead compartment on an airplane. You want to try to keep your body as straight as possible, holding your luggage close to your body, lifting it up and getting it into the overhead.

You also want to make sure as you're carrying your luggage on the plane, around the airport, as much as you can, alternate arms. You want to lift rather than dragging your luggage up and downstairs. You can always take an elevator rather than trying to take the escalator and potentially getting caught in a situation where you're scrambling to move with your luggage if it's too heavy and it twists your wrist or your arm.

And then if you're using the backpack rather than like a traditional luggage bag, make sure that your backpack has shoulder straps on and put both of the straps on so that it's evenly distributed on both the shoulders, rather than slinging it over one shoulder, that can cause more muscle strain on a shoulder or on one side of your neck. Have a good backpack, a good sturdy backpack with padded and adjustable shoulder straps so you can get that weight balanced on your back and you want to keep the heavier items in your backpack lower in the backpack and towards the center. You don't want it to be towards the top or off center where it's throwing your shoulders or your neck off.

Host: And with the backpacks, I've noticed some of them have a waist buckle. Should you buckle that or is it is good to leave that unbuckled?

Guest: Yeah. So some of the more nicer backpacks, the ones that are kind of more also for camping will have a waist buckle. And those are nice because rather than relying upon all the support coming from around your shoulders, those buckles kind of helps to distribute the weight a little bit more evenly around your hips, so that it takes some of the weight off of your shoulders. And really in those situations, those types of backpacks, it helps out quite a bit if you make sure you pack properly or you can pack those heavier items towards the bottom of the backpack, near where the waist belt is and that way you've got those heavier items being supported more through your hips, which are bigger muscles around your hips, as opposed to around your shoulders.

Host: And does that mean we should have the backpack high on our shoulders or should it be lower on our shoulders?

Guest: You want to have it more centered along your back.

Host: Okay. That makes sense too. So, between the backpack and making sure we check the luggage or at least making sure the luggage is light enough to go into the overhead compartment, because I always see that some guy when I fly is bringing the biggest suitcase he can find and he's trying to stuff it in the overhead bin. Check-in luggage, save yourself the injury.

Now that we've got the house in order, now that we're traveling, we’ve made it to dinner finally with the family, what's some kind of common mistakes people do when they're carving or getting ready for a meal?

Guest: Yeah. so you wanna make sure that as you're cooking and carving, that you want to try to keep your safety in the kitchen and the dining room table. As far as carving is concerned, you want to make sure that you have dry hands, that your hands are not slipping as you're trying to carve or as you're gripping your carving tools. You want to place whatever you're carving on a stable, steady work surface that's not teetering around and that way, you can carve a little bit more securely.

So you want to use one hand for carving and you want to have a second utensil, not your hand, but an actual utensil helping the whole turkey or hold or whatever you're doing steady so that you can cut along the steady surface. And you don't want to cut towards yourself. You should always be cutting away from yourself. So, you use your carving hand to cut away from yourself and your free hand should have some kind of a tool to help secure the turkey. And your free hand should be placed opposite to the side that you're carving towards so that your hand is not right in the direction where the blade is gonna go cut the meat so that if your blade slips, it doesn't cut your hand. You want to keep your hand away from the area.

You do want to keep your cutting knives sharp, because when you've got a nice sharp knife, you're less likely to use force in sawing to do the cutting of the meat. Dull knives are more likely to slip. You can use an electric knife. That's fine to do, but again, watch those fingers. You want to keep your fingers well away from the electric knife blade.

If you do cut yourself, then you want to hold pressure along the wound with a clean cloth. And if the pressure does not stop the bleeding, give yourself about 10, 15 minutes. If it doesn't stop the bleeding or if you feel numbness or tingling or if you have trouble bending your fingers, you really should get it evaluated either in an emergency room or in an immediate care center.

Host: Yeah, that was going to be my next question was at what point do you decide that it's time to go in because there's a lot of guys out there who are saying, "I am tough, I can handle it." But at what point do you literally throw in the bloody towel, so to speak, and decide to go into the ER,

Guest: Right. So you want to go in if you don't know what your tetanus status is, to get your tetanus updated. You want to go in if you can't get the wound properly cleaned out. You can use antibacterial soap and clean water just to clean it out. If you can't get it properly clean, then that's a reason to go in so that someone can properly clean it out for you. If you believe you might need sutures, stitches, then you might need to go in. Again, if you can't stop the bleeding, that's a reason to go in. And then finally, if there's any concern for dysfunction, like you have a numbness or tingling at the tip of your finger or you can't bend a part of your finger, those are reasons to go in and get evaluated to make sure that you didn't cut a nerve or a tendon

Host: Okay. From the pick-up games of football you see out in the yard, any kind of injuries to watch out for there?

Guest: Yeah. So, sometimes pick-up games can be really kind of light and friendly. Sometimes, people get really into those family football games. You've got things to prove and you want to make sure you keep your status. And for some people, that might be some of the hardest games that they're playing all year. You've got some, sports-related injuries that can come with some of our weekend warriors. And people can end up getting like wrist and ankle fractures. They can get dislocated fingers. They can injure their rotator cuff. You know, getting Achilles tendon ruptures are not unheard of. You can get a head injury or concussion. And so you want to make sure that in order to be safe, you kind of know what your own level of strength is, know what your level of activity is.

Remember, most of us who are playing these holiday games, like, you know, we remember how we were in our high school days. A lot of times you may not have been in high school for some period of time, maybe a couple of decades. So remember that your joints and your tendons and ligaments don't quite keep up with us as much as we think that they do. And so sometimes having that loss of flexibility or that standard loss of muscle strength or endurance that you get, might be something that might set you up more likely to get an injury. You want to try to do some regular workouts during the course of the year, build up so that you're in good athletic shape or for your competition.

A lot of times it's cold outside around Thanksgiving. So you want to take time to warm up your muscle beforehand. Taking a good 10 minutes to stretch and kind of warm up a little bit before you head outside. You can wear some extra padding when you go outside. Having nice warm clothes on, having, somebody with ice on hand, just in case there's an injury.

And then remember sometimes, people are going out. They've had a couple of drinks or something like that, they're going out to celebrate and throwing football around. And, certainly beers and cocktails don't necessarily mix with great judgment. And so sometimes you can feel like you're still in high school after a drink or two, but that doesn't mean that you are. So if you've been indulging, the better thing to do is to watch the football game, watch the parade on TV, and stick with whatever's going on with the professionals on the TV instead of trying to recreate it on your own.

Host: Very good tips. Anything else that we should know about the holidays?

Guest: No, I think that's a pretty good overview of all the things that we can watch out for around the Thanksgiving time.

Excellent.

Host: Two final questions I have since you've spent time in Chicago, you’ve spent time in Cincinnati and you've spent time in Philadelphia, Eagles, Bengals, or the Bears?

Guest: Gosh. I spent almost all my life in the Chicago area, twenty-six years, so I'm a Bears fan.

Host: Excellent. And your favorite side dish for Thanksgiving?

Guest: Oh, that's a hard one. We've got some really good family recipes. I can make a really killer pumpkin pie. And we also have a great cranberry sauce recipe that I love, as well as a great rice recipe that has, you know, a ton of parsley and green onions and all the good stuff that I love.

Host: That sounds great. Yeah. I love a good cranberry sauce. I will steal the whole bowl of cranberry sauce if nobody’s looking, so... Well, I want to thank you for spending the time with us today, and I want to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving and safe travels. So, thank you very much for your time.

Guest: Thanks, Sean. Happy Thanksgiving.

Host: All right. And to everyone else listening out there, have a happy holiday. Remember, be safe, be smart, and be sure to tune in next time for Well Within Reach. Thank you.