Nail gun versus computer?
Which is more dangerous, a nail gun or a computer? The answer might seem obvious but a survey of emergency rooms at US hospitals has revealed some surprising results.
The US Consumer Product Safety Commission surveyed a hundred emergency rooms from hospitals across the USA and its record of over a quarter of a million injuries has been compiled into a searchable database. In this typical cross-section of US injuries, we find a surprising number of people who managed to nail their hands to the wall or feet to the floor, and the nail gun featured in 244 cases in total. Drills proved even more dangerous and showed up 459 times, but beating both of them is the computer, involved in some capacity in over 600 of the injuries featured.
Some of those injuries are predictable. There is the case of the 43 year old female who strained her neck from using her laptop too much, the 33 year old male who dropped his laptop onto his big toe, and the 80 year old who tripped over the power lead and suffered a fracture. Other computer-related injuries are less predictable, such as the 23 year old male who was rummaging in his wardrobe when a hard drive fell off the top shelf and struck him on the head. Most surprising though was the number of self inflicted injuries, such as the 19 year old who punched his computer five times in frustration and fractured his hand. The elderly were no more dignified. A 65 year old gentleman suffered the same injury when his frustration with his computer caused him to punch a bookcase.
Finally, the strangest computer-related injury I found in the database was one of a teenager picking up a few bruises and abrasions whilst playing a computer game. He was sitting at the keyboard when Mom accidentally drove the family four wheel drive into the house.
28th January 2010