Children to 3 years get burns more frequently

Author: Anna Kalenska

Maximal number of severe thermal injuries is registered by specialists in spring and summer.

"It is explained by high activity of population in the warm period of the year, said Georgiy Kozinets, Doctor of Medicine, Professor, Head of the Kyiv City Center of Thermal Injuries and Plastic Surgery. -   Everybody starts making repairs, go to nature, make fires, fry barbecue. But a holiday can finish with a tragedy. In winter it seems quieter in this plan, everybody is at home, but there is another danger - frostbite. In 2006, when there were frosts below 40 degrees, more than 10 thousand frostbites were registered for one month."

According to WHO burns occupy the third place among other injuries on frequency of origin, and in some countries - the second, yielding only to transport injuries. More frequently there are home burns - up to 92%, rarer similar injuries are got at production. There are15% children of the total number of victims up to 15 years, a half of them gets injuries in the age from one to three years.

"At present there is a tendency for decreasing children's traumatism, but at the same time, injuries become severer. If a child gets a burn, consequences will be much severer for him than for an adult. Children up to three years do not understand that it is dangerous to touch a hot pan or to poke something into a socket; therefore more frequently they get burns by boiling water or electrical injuries. 

Teenagers in search of exciting experience penetrate into transformer vaults, climb up high-voltage lines, dig out cables, and climb up the roofs of coaches. Now there is a fellow in our centre with complex high-voltage electrical injury. Therefore parents must to be more attentive to their children," George Kozinets is convinced.

Source: InterMedia consulting