This is... Med-talk presented by HCA Midwest Health. I'm Jamie with Dr. Stefanie Shustek-ER physician. We're talking about what parents should know. For the summer, the days are getting longer, the weather is getting warmer, kids are spending more time outdoors and so now that we're into spring it's trying to get your kids and your grandkids, ready is the head outside whether it's temperatures rising, or getting kids ready for camps or hiking sports playgrounds or bike rides, injuries can happen quickly. And so, we're talking to Dr. Sue stock about how to prevent injuries, most importantly, what to do if your child is injured. So door shut, exactly how common or visits to the ER with kids entered in sports. They're actually a lot more common than you would think, about Every 25 seconds or to put it in terms of numbers, 13 million visits per year to the ER due to injuries related to sports with kids. It can range anywhere from concussion, to knees, or the great ACL injury, and those are just the numbers at the HA facility. And so, again, with our youth, those injuries can include a lot of things, "What can we do for our kids ahead of time to prevent some of those injuries, even and pre-workout stretching knowledge of sports injuries, kids, telling their parents when they have an injury instead of working through it, and what they used to say, "Suck it up and keep going. No, 'cause what you do is you just injure and render the injury and I just get to worse and worse. I can become a very chronic injury. Does it make a difference how early kids start playing sports, it does kids have what we call growth plates which are the places between the major bones of the body. If you injure growth plate you could most definitely have a very long-term injury without proper treatment. Are there any sports that you steer kids away from? I would steer clear of sports that have been known to cause serious and very head injuries in particular football which is huge here in the Midwest, but I... The head injuries are very significant in children. It's interesting you mention that because there was a lot of focus in the last couple of years on the concussions that kids get from football, and there's a lot of debate about whether parents want their kids in football, if there are ways to make that safer and that's not the only one we've talked before about Rubens. popularly RE. Are there other sports like hockey, that or even just soccer with the kids are running into each other, sometimes that can be really bad for kids absolutely so I've seen a lot of my neighbor starting to mow their lawn. We've been talking about this a lot lately. And a lot of times you'll be driven on the street, you see kids riding on their lawn, mowers with their parents or their grandparents. We all did it but is it safe? Absolutely not. There are probably 800 amputation injuries a year with regards to labors. You should never let anyone less than 16 do a home and they should never write on a more due to the amputation injury risk without getting too graphic, and describing that what happens. So what happened, especially well the color, the walk behind Miller. Now, a lot of them have safety features where they have to hold the bar in order to... For the mower to go the older ones, the more the blade still turn if the more turns upside down, you can lose those fingers. Even larger limbs, they're right on mowers, are even more dangerous because they have a larger blade and bigger mowers and kids can fall. I just think any time a child can fall nothing good is gonna happen out of that. No, so what about trampolines? It seems like every spring or summer, you hear these horrible stories about injuries from those, and I see why kids wanna play on their fun, they're fun, for adults too. It's A-E-I and a really great way to get exercise, but what are the dangers? And having kids on trampolines one of the worst arm fractures I've ever seen was on a trampoline. A young girl is Dan trampling with her friends, she fell onto the bar on this support outside of the trampoline broker arm pretty significantly. You can also run the risk of head injuries neck injuries. Especially when there's more than one kid, on a trampoline. Is there any way to make a trampoline safer? You've seen them with the nets around them. So at least they can't fall out of them. How effective or things like that, like the nets, they're fairly effective with regards to jumping off the trampling landing awkwardly off the trampoline. But definitely the safest thing is to do one jumper to time. If there are two jumpers at a time, separate them and always have adult supervision. We are seeing an explosion with the electric scooters and the MOP heads. What kind of injuries are you treating in the R if any? A lot, anything from a scanner brain, which is just a brush on the skin to concussion to more serious injuries. They think that it's not a motorized vehicle, but it has a motor and a lot of kids don't wear helmets with it because it's just a scooter, but you need to take all safety precautions with those vehicles. Tell me about the kinds of injuries that you get then from the scooter, scooter is you can fall off the scooter again have an abrasion you could break an ankle, concussion break an arm to anywhere, even more serious getting hit by another vehicle such as a car. having significant trust in them. "domnall trauma with that, can you tell me about the study on a southern California about the kids that were... Had fallen or collided with an object while distracted 90% of those writers that fell out of those studies collided with an object because they were distracted either they have their headphones in, they're texting, they're not paying attention, they're talking with their friends. Very significant injuries from that as well. So, what are some tips in terms of keeping kids safe on scooters? Again, the younger the child, probably shouldn't be on a scooter in education. Just like you have a driver training for a vehicle you should have practice and driver training for the scooters know the rules of the road know where you can and cannot ride your scooter and how fast or scooter goes. I'm also very important. Talk to me about that, about speed. What's an alarming speed to you? For kid really anything more than 10 miles an hour, an alarming speed 'cause not only are you going that fast, but you're gonna impact whatever you in fact the ground another vehicle, another person at that speed. And it can be cumulative, with regards to impact trauma we see a lot of the bird scooters around and those kinds of things that are intended for adults, but I think we've all seen a kid on them. How were those different than the ones that parents might have at home? Well, they're different because they're not appropriately sized for a child. So all of the safety features that are intended for adults, don't really apply to kids different weights, different sizes. It's not effective for the safety of the child. I know we're talking out doors we spent a lot of time talking about that. Are there injuries, indoors that you see in emergency rooms for kids to summer? Oh sure, you think about... Oh, it's beautiful outside, I'm in a garden will then you have all your chemicals for gardening, you have your weed to kill or you have your plant and grower and sometimes those containers leak kids get definite they put their hands in it, then they eat it or they have shares around 'cause you're gonna prove your hedges 'cause they're over ground from the winter and those are very sharp and very dangerous. Wow, now you got me thinking about garages and what people keep in there or in their sheds in the back that kids could get into and they've got a little more time to wander around a little bit or nearly it's summer, so they're curious, they've got the time to go check things out. What else might be in a closer and a garage or something that parents need to really secure? So it could be anything, it could be anything from an unmaintained outlet from say a freezer that's been running all winter and now is piled behind stuff or when they're getting out their summer furniture and it's not Pilsen the kid just goes to grab some thinking, it all falls down so many things in the garage that could be very dangerous. Would it be helpful at all? For parents to keep up the national Poison Center all around the house? Absolutely past that number on the fridge next to the phone. It is 1800-2-2-2-1-2-2-2, thanks to Dr. Stefanie Shustek, ER physician from Belton Regional Media Center.