Falls from windows, one of the most common source of injuries for kids: Children’s Hospital

Tumbling from second-floor window is one of the most common injuries sending kids to hospital. According the Alberta Children’s Hospital, using trampolines, ATVs, burns from outdoor fire pits, near drownings and playing with anything that has wheels are also common ways children get hurt.

EMS is urging parents to kid-proof their window areas after a pair of incidents. At about 4:30 p.m. Saturday, paramedics were called to an Airdrie home after a A toddler fell from a second-storey window and landed on the concrete five meters below. The toddler was taken by ambulance to ACH in Calgary in stable, non-life threatening condition.

In a similar incident in Abbotsford, B.C., a three-year-old boy was airlifted to hospital after falling from the third floor of apartment building Friday night. He suffered non-life threatening injuries and witnesses say he was conscious when he was taken away by the medevac chopper.

“The injuries are 100 per cent predictable and preventative, so they are not accidents,” said Sherry MacGillivray, a paediatric trauma coordinator at Alberta Children’s Hospital, during a recent interview with 660 NEWS. MacGillivray says it’s important to educate kids and adults about risks.

ParachuteCanada.org is probably one of the best websites that you can go to, to look at injuries. They probably have about 15 – 20 injury topics. You click on them and then they say ‘do you want to teach children, do you want to teach parents, do you want to teach teachers.’ And it just gives you ideas of how to prevent these injuries,” she says.

MacGillivray says the hospital treats anywhere from 1,700 to 2000 children a month between May and October. That’s more than 50 kids a day.

 

Top Stories

Top Stories

Most Watched Today