Health & Lifestyle

Tis the season to be clumsy! 15,000 people will suffer Christmas-related injuries this year in the US – these are the most bizarre mishaps EVER

  • In 2022, 14,800 Americans were treated in the ER for decorating-related injuries
  • Meanwhile, a girl, 4, put a metal bell in her ear so she could listen to ‘Jingle Bells’
  • READ MORE: This is how much weight you could gain during the holiday season

Every year, around 15,000 people visit emergency rooms due to accidents with Christmas decorations, including artificial trees, ornaments and lights.

Many people indulge in a Christmas tipple throughout the holidays, so doctors say it’s no surprise that 40 percent of all holiday accidents in adults involve alcohol.

Some of the more bizarre injuries sustained over the years include a 50-year-old American woman who had been standing on a chair hanging Christmas lights.

She fell and struck her rectum on the tree branches – causing a painful tear.

Another incident included a four-year-old girl who put a metal bell in her ear so she could listen to ‘Jingle Bells.’

Every year, around 15,000 people visit emergency rooms due to accidents with Christmas decorations (stock image)

Every year, around 15,000 people visit emergency rooms due to accidents with Christmas decorations (stock image)

According to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, there are about 160 Christmas decorating-related injuries each day during the holiday season, with four in 10 involving falls. 

In the latest holiday season – between November 1, 2021, and January 31, 2022 – about 14,800 people were treated in hospital emergency departments due to holiday decorating-related injuries. 

Over the years, these have included a 28-year-old woman who was putting up an ornament when the bar stool slipped under her – causing vaginal trauma from the landing.

A 36-year-old man accidentally swallowed a drawing pin while putting up Christmas decorations when he looked up and sneezed, while a 64-year-old woman sprained her foot after dropping a four-foot wooden Santa on it.

Meanwhile, researchers from Australia and Germany found that 277 children were injured by Santa impersonators in America between 2007 and 2016.

This included three children who had to go to the ER after ‘falling off Santa’s lap’, and another child who went to the ER after she fell when, due to being so scared, she tried to run away from Santa.

The researchers looked at data on emergency visits involving injuries related to Christmas products between 2007 and 2016 in the US.

The study was published in the journal Advances in Integrative Medicine in 2018.

Three children had to go to the ER after 'falling off Santa's lap,' and another child went to the ER after she fell when, due to being so scared, she tried to run away from Santa (stock pic)

Three children had to go to the ER after ‘falling off Santa’s lap,’ and another child went to the ER after she fell when, due to being so scared, she tried to run away from Santa (stock pic)

A CT scan of the man showed four whole peppermint candies in his stomach

Christmas candies shown next to a ruler for size comparison

A CT scan of the man showed four whole peppermint candies in his stomach (pictured left). Christmas candies are shown next to a ruler for size comparison (pictured right)

Research from Canada found that people who injured themselves installing Christmas lights spent an average of 15 days in the hospital, and sadly, five percent of those injured died. The average age of the patients was 55 years.

In 2017, an 86-year-old man from Virginia went to the emergency department with severe stomach pain the last week of December.

A CT scan of his abdomen showed multiple small round objects in his stomach.

His wife remembered that he had received peppermint candies for Christmas.

The man had no teeth, so he had been swallowing the candies whole.

The man had other diseases, so the doctors decided it was best not to operate but just to give him comfort care.

The case was published in The Journal of Emergency Medicine

In Nottingham in the UK, a woman’s fingertip was chopped off in a letterbox while delivering Christmas cards.

The week before Christmas, a 59-year-old woman sliced off the tip of her middle finger on her left hand while posting cards through a neighbor’s letterbox with a ‘razor-sharp’ edge.

The doctors wrote in the British Journal of Plastic Surgery: ‘The mechanism of injury involved the spring-loaded flap of the letter box snapping down on the finger as the card was pushed through.

‘The natural reaction to the digit being trapped in this way was to withdraw the hand quickly. The sharp edge of the letter box then served as a blade to amputate the fingertip.’

Doctors used a flap of skin from further down the finger to secure over the amputated finger, and the woman was able to make a swift recovery.

A chest X-ray of the girl showed the Christmas light in her left lung

The LED bulb from the Christmas lights decorating her family's tree was removed from her lung

A chest X-ray of the girl showed the Christmas light in her left lung (pictured left). The LED bulb from the Christmas lights decorating her family’s tree was removed from her lung (pictured right)

In France, a 14-month-old girl inhaled an LED bulb that was initially used to decorate her family’s Christmas tree.

The baby, whose name is unknown, suffered from coughing and wheezing in the run-up to Christmas in 2017.

Doctors suspected she had developed asthma and dished her out drugs to combat her symptoms. However, they didn’t work.

Medical scans three weeks later revealed a U-shaped foreign body in her left lung, which surgeons were concerned about.

The object was found to be an LED bulb. It was removed using a bronchoscope – a flexible tube with a camera and light attached to the end.

Her parents, believed to be from Marseille, then realized it had come from their Christmas tree because they were missing a bulb.

The little girl, whose tale was published in Respiratory Medicine Case Reports, made a good recovery after the procedure.


Read More: World News | Entertainment News | Celeb News

Daily M

Related posts

Finger-prick hormone tests used by women going through IVF and menopause may be unreliable, experts warn

BBC Brk News

What is xylazine? White House launches national response plan for combating drug deaths

BBC Brk News

My dream of motherhood has been snatched away from me: Agony of woman in her 40s whose embryos may have been destroyed by ‘fault’ in freezing process at top NHS fertility clinic

BBC Brk News

Leave a Comment