Bathroom is Danger-Spot in Home

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 857, 28 December 1929, Page 18

Bathroom is Danger-Spot in Home

STATISTICS REVEAL TYPES OF CASUALTY WHICH COULD SELDOM HAPPEN IN ANOTHER PART OF THE HOUSE . ..

T is aii old joke to say j that bed is the most S dangerous place in tlie J world because statistics J| show that more people j die in bed than anywhere else. But it is no joke that beds actually are dangerous articles, as disclosed by the fact that in 192 S hundreds of thousands of persons were injured getting in or out o£ them. Still less is it a joke, as insurance statistics and the case books of the family doctors reveal, that another familiar household article, the bathtub, is dangerous enough almost to be ranked as a. deadly weapon.

Bathrooms, these same unquestionable figures show, are the most dangerous rooms frequented by human beings; many more so than the workrooms of factories or even the enginerooms of ocean-going steamships. Not only is it in the bathroom that the highest percentages of home accidents occur, but there are more different ways in which the average human being can have a casualty in a bathroom than anywhere else in the house.

In. London last December Coroner Dr. W. H. Whitehouse issued an official warning against the danger of electrocution by taking hold of an electric light fixture while standing in a bathtub containing water; probably the cause of more fatal electric shocks in the home than all other causes put together. In Forest Hills, a suburb of New York City, a man slipped on a piece of soap in his bathtub, fell out, struck his head on the edge of the tub and was dead in five minutes. Last year in Camden Town, London, Mr. W. F. Maishman put his collar button in his mouth while he washed his face at a wash-basin. He swallowed the button and choked to death before aid could reach him.

Even the danger of germ infection is increased, experts say, the bathtub. Dr. Curran Pope, a well-known expert on curative bathing and other forms of physical therapy, stated recently that the “bathtub is the dirtiest way of getting clean." The bath sponge is often a storehouse of germs and many cases of infection have been traced to them. On grounds of cleanliness and sanitation, Dr. Pope prefers a shower-bath. But even that

is not free from dangers, for the acci-1 dent statistics show that thousands | each vear are injured by slipping on I the smooth floor of the shower, find- . ing nothing substantial to take hold of, and landing a second or two later j on the floor or on some near-by article j of bathroom furniture. Five thou-1 sand nine hundred and ten of them were accidents in homes —almost as manv as the automobile accidents and • more than the accidents suffered in all kinds of sport, from baseball to prize-fighting. Of the home accidents. ; about 40 per cent, were due to falls of one kind or another, and almost 2 per cent, were due to falls into or out of bathtubs or showers. To these ; bathroom falls there must be added, too, the people who cut themselves with razors and other bathroom utensils, people electrically shocked in bathrooms, people poisoned by the fumes of bathroom heaters, people j burnt by steam and hot water, and all

the other victims of bathroom casualties. It is estimated that one year’s total of non-fatal home accidents in America and England, is at least 8,000,000. Three million or more of these are due to falls over, off, into or out of something. About 150,000 are due to falls started somehow or other by shower-baths or bathtubs. Adding the other bathroom accidents, it is same to say that during 1930 at least several hundreds of thousands of persons will be more or less seriously injured

in this most dangerous of houseW rooms. One great reason tor the s er t ness of bathroom mishaps is'the Wht of locking the bathroom door tv; person who is injured has difflcnJ* trying to get out and may be injn!2 further. Persons outside fail to that anything has gone wrong or » unable to aid until tools hare hfc* brought to batter down the door" -Not many people.” a writer cently. “would deliberately shut tht selves inside a locked cioset with tiger, a rattlesnake and a flash 1 lightning. Yet prudery has led men and women into a habit alw equally silly, that of locking th#*. selves in a bathroom full of danJ. ous articles whenever they bath.” 1 Not long ago Dr. Guy H lnsd ., tabulated 16 distinct causes of h,.v room injuries. His list is a formidable cne. *. statistics of bathroom danger* perhaps more frightening still, ? the prevention of almost every one!' these accidents requires nthlng reasonable care and foresight. every sensible householder took a hji> hour off some day to study the djj* gers of his own bathroom and i contrive ways of avoiding them, (k number of bathroom accidents pmh ably would decrease by one-half K three-fourths within a week. One simple precaution, which neve-, theless few bathrooms possess, i t s strong bar or handhold of some kind screwed to the wall, beside tab or shower, so that it can be grabbed quicker if the bather slips. To prevent danger from bathroon electric shocks the policy of earefc' electricians is never to install aelectric fixture so that it can b» reached by a person in the tub orbyt person with his hands in the wasr" bowl. If the fixtures themselves a> unreachable and the switches are s some little distance, no deaths froi electrocution will happen in that bait room. Perhaps the most elementary pr f caution, however, is one which almos no bathroom possesses. This is son' device for giving an alarm outside it case of accident A convenient elec trie push button is good. A screenec hole through which a call for help eg be heard outside might be even bettr Doubtless modern safety engineer; could perfect still better device? alarms registering if anyone fell i: the bathroom, self-unlocking doors fc: emergencies, or still more direct ways of summoning aid.