How to Keep the Fall Out of Holiday Season

His Thanksgiving meal barely digested, a 44-year-old man went outside to string Christmas lights at his Mission Viejo home.

He scaled a ladder and was transferring his weight from the top rungs to the roof when he slipped--with disastrous results. He fell, fracturing his skull, breaking a forearm and rupturing blood vessels in his brain. He spent the rest of the 1995 holidays in a hospital bed recovering from his injuries.

The doctor who treated the injured man was Thomas Shaver, former director of emergency medicine at Mission Regional Medical Center. He recounted the accident this week as an example of how the popular custom of decorating rooftops with Christmas lights can be dangerous.

Every year, emergency rooms around Orange County and across the nation treat serious injuries and sometimes report deaths resulting from falls by people putting up outdoor holiday decorations.

“It can have devastating effects,” Shaver said. “At a time of year that should be about enjoyment and elation, this turns into a family’s worst nightmare.”

The Mission Viejo hospital typically sees two or three serious injuries a year to would-be Christmas decorators.

Dr. Wesley Fields, an emergency room physician at Saddleback Memorial Medical Center in Laguna Hills, said such accidents are all too predictable. “People get on an unstable ladder and fall,” he said. “I had this man last year who broke several ribs while trying to get his lights up.”

The blunt force of a 6- to 10-foot drop from the roof can cause major injuries. Trauma specialists say they have treated fall victims for skull fractures, neck and back injuries, even brain damage that resulted in death.

Some accidents are bound to happen, experts say, when overconfident homeowners venture onto housetops.

“It looks very easy, but getting on a roof is tricky,” said Dottie Mamchur, who owns Santa Ana Roofing. “I see people all the time that try to save a few bucks by doing it by themselves.”

State law requires her workers to use safety ropes, she said. Do-it-yourselfers seldom take such precautions.

The biggest hazard is the ladder, she and other roofing experts say. Standard home ladders are 6 feet long, while most roofs are 8 to 10 feet above the ground. Most accidents happen when people are descending and trying to negotiate the 2 to 4 feet in between. Also, many home ladders fold out, so even a small nudge can cause them to collapse.

Roofing materials present another hazard. The slanted wood-shake roofs popular in Southern California can be slippery when wet, even if the moisture is minimal, as from morning dew.

Human error is another factor.

“People are unsure of themselves on roofs,” Mamchur said. “You have to know how to walk on them.” The uninitiated, she said, “freeze up there.”

Though the number of injuries in roof falls is minuscule compared to the total of holiday emergency room cases, they are still a concern to national safety experts.

“It’s a serious problem,” said Robert Bates, chairman of the health studies department at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston and a board member of the National Safety Council.

“Putting up lights is a cultural event, and we don’t look at it with any perspective. We don’t think of the consequences,” he said. “Then after the accident occurs, people say, ‘Isn’t it sad that this happened at Christmas?’ ”

Holiday decorators, particularly those approaching or over retirement age, should be realistic, he said. Putting up outside Christmas lights may be a long-standing family custom, but a fall, especially for an older person, could be devastating.

To avoid courting disaster, experts suggest hiring a handyman to install the roof decorations. Or keep the bright lights closer to the ground by stringing them on shrubbery and handrails instead of on the eaves.

Scaling a ladder to deck the housetop may be an annual test of courage, skill and dexterity, Bates said. “The question is, do you want the test to be a serious injury?”

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Safety Checklist

Planning ahead can prevent accidents while you’re decorating the house with lights. Some tips to prevent trips or falls:

* Set the ladder on level ground before climbing; use the right-size ladder, not a smaller one than the job requires.

* Check the weight of boxes before pulling them from attic or rafters; if a box is heavy, remove a few items before lifting it.

* Before climbing the ladder, plug in lights, lay them flat and replace burned-out bulbs; unplug lights again before hanging them.

* Rather than climb up and down a ladder, have a helper hand you the lights and decorations.

* Move extension cords out of the way, securing them along baseboards or ceilings.

* If lights are left up year-round, check for frayed or rusted wires.

Source: Orange County Health Care Agency, Emergency Medical Services Division