Health Watch: Summertime brings spike in youth ER cases

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - From Memorial Day to the end of the Labor Day weekend, hospitals tend to experience what is coined the “Trauma season.”

It’s a time of the year, Providence Hospital said, that it sees an uptick in preventable trauma injuries, especially in youth.

“Kids have a little bit more free time on their typically not-in-school sessions. Sometimes that’s supervised time, sometimes it’s unsupervised time and nice weather encourages everybody to be outside, which is marvelous,” Sara Penisten Turcic, Registered Nurse at Providence Alaska Medical Center, said. “We want people to be outside in the fresh air, but sometimes choices of risky behaviors lead to injuries.”

The summertime trauma season has a large influence on the hospital’s annual trauma data. According to Providence Alaska, it saw 194 pediatric trauma patients last summer.

According to the hospital, almost half of the traumas last year for youth occurred between May and August. Some of those common traumas include injuries linked to biking, skateboarding, rollerblading, scootering, and water-related injuries.

“Especially at waterfronts, we want kids and adults to be wearing life jackets because drowning can occur in very small amounts of water. And even if folks think they’re good swimmers, Alaskan water is colder than water in other states,” Penisten Turcic said.

According to Penisten Turcic, most lake and creek fronts in the Municipality of Anchorage have “Kids Don’t Float” loaner life jacket stations. These are areas where people can get a free life jacket to borrow while recreating in the water.

“I tell people that life jackets as well as bike helmets are kind of like shoes. Everybody needs the correct size because it’s not a one-size-fits-all. Life jackets should be approved by the US Coast Guard and they have weight limits and size limits printed right inside on the labels,” Penisten Turcic said.

In addition to making sure your life jacket fits properly, Penisten Turcic advises that people find the right helmet for their summer activities. If someone is riding a bike, she recommends that they use a bike helmet.

Those types of helmets, she said, are specifically designed to protect the frontal area of someone’s head.

“Because the majority of bicycle injuries are when the riders go over the handlebars and impact at the frontal part of the head,” Penisten Turcic said.

Meanwhile, people participating in skateboarding, rollerblading, or scootering should use a sports helmet. Those helmets are designed to provide further coverage on the back of the seas and occipital partition of the head, Penisten Turcic said.

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