Mouthguards for safety in sports

The use of a mouthguard is a major deterrent to injuries to people who play sports. Because schools are a major sponsor of sports for youngsters, being informed on athletic safety is crucial. A website called Sports Dentistry Online has a great deal of useful information. It introduces its mouthguards section with the following, that makes the importance of using the devices clear:

In Dr. Raymond Flander’s 1995 study, he reported on the high incidence of injuries in sports other than football, in both male and female sporting activities. In football where mouthguards are worn, .07% of the injuries were orofacial. In basketball where mouthguards are not routinely worn, 34% of the injuries were orofacial. Various degrees of injury, from simple contusions and lacerations to avulsions and fractured jaws are being reported.

The National Youth Sports Foundation for the Prevention of Athletic Injuries, Inc. reports several interesting statistics. Dental injuries are the most common type or orofacial injury sustained during participation in sports. Victims of total tooth avulsions who do not have teeth properly preserved or replanted may face lifetime dental costs of $10,000 - $15,000 per tooth, hours in the dentist’s chair, and the possible development of other dental problems such as periodontal disease. It is estimated by the American Dental Association that mouthguards prevent approximately 200,000 injuries each year in high school and collegiate football alone.

avulsion: a forcible separation or detachment, referring in the above to what we might call having a tooth knocked out
orofacial: of or relating to the mouth and face

Laser Safety videos from Harvard

There is a collection of detailed safety information on the Harvard School of Engineering & Applied Sciences, Physics Department, and Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences Safety Committee Homepage. People who are responsible for or work in school laboratories can learn many safety subjects in the topics available there.

An example of the thoroughgoing safety training is the group of 3 Laser Safety Videos on the Laser Safety page. The videos are detailed lectures by Professor Eric Mazur of the Harvard Physics Department. Dr. Mazur carefully explains a variety of dangers from laser beams, principally to human eyes. He discusses how the eye actually can look at a laser so that the focusing optics of the eye direct the beam into the eyeball and on to the retina. Lasers can also damage eyes even when they bounce into them as reflections. One his charts in the video lists these rules:

Wear safety glasses !
Post signs
Terminate all beams
Never defeat interlocks
Don’t underestimate reflections
Young generations live in an environment of dangers for which our bodies are not prepared biologically, and for which we do not have natural awareness and defenses. For anyone who will study or teach in the sciences, taking the time to watch these videos is a very good way to avoid harm in the future.

Campus Safety Task Force recommendations from Virginia Tech

A report from News 14 Carolina provides updates on the efforts to learn from last spring’s Virginia Tech shootings. A bottom line in the report: “Attorney General Cooper has one suggestion for the state legislature: ‘People with severe and dangerous mental illness shouldn’t be able to buy a gun and it’s as simple as that,’ Cooper stressed.”

The following 11 suggestions, that can improve safety for all schools, have been made by the Campus Safety Task Force appointed to study the massacre last April:

1. Campuses should establish threat assessment teams.
2. Campus administrators and mental health professionals should be provided accurate guidance about student privacy laws.
3. N.C. should prohibit those who have been involuntarily committed from purchasing guns by reporting this information to the National Instant Background Check System.
4. Campuses should adopt emergency plans that integrate into the National Incident Management System.
5. Campuses should enter into mutual aid agreements or MOUs with key partners where relevant.
6. Campuses should practice and regularly update their emergency plans.
7. Campuses should educate and train faculty, staff, and students as part of their emergency plans.
8. Campuses should adopt multiple, redundant notification systems and rigorously evaluate such systems.
9. Campuses should partner with local law enforcement and first responders to ensure interoperable communications.
10. Campuses should incorporate victim counseling services in their emergency plans and establish a system of regular briefings for victims’ families.
11. The State should establish a Center for Campus Safety to coordinate training programs, hold an annual summit, and share “best practices” information.

Via KeepSchoolSafe.org

Ready Kids: Safety Training from Homeland Security

Be Prepared in Every Situation purrs this activity-packed website for learning about safety created by the US Department of Homeland Security. The theme is built around a mountain lion family: we learn that mountain lions do not roar, they purr.

There are instructions, facts, activities, fun, games and more, all aimed at giving children the basics to stay safe in different kinds of dangers. The section for parents and teachers provides this bottom line advice:

We must have the tools and plans in place to make it on our own, at least for a period of time, no matter where we are are when disaster strikes. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security urges all Americans to: get a kit of emergency supplies; make a plan for what you will do in an emergency; and be informed about what might happen. Just like having a working smoke detector, preparing for the unexpected makes sense. Get Ready Now.

Begin the New Year fireworks-safe

Though we usually think of fireworks for summer celebrations, New Year’s Eve is the time when the second most injuries from fireworks occur. The video you can watch by clicking here is from the California Statewide Safety and Education Program. Some child actors do a good job of showing close calls averted, not because the kids are careful but only because the Preventor shows up.

Those of us responsible for youngsters can help them stay safe by teaching them the dangers of fireworks. The Fireworks Safety section at keepkidshealthy.com is an excellent primer on the subject.

Autobiography of a bomb dog

If a situation ever occurs at a school where a bomb sniffing dog is used to investigate, the event will be less alarming for children who know what the dog is doing and that the dog is a highly trained specialist whose job it is to keep them safe. Among its “Kid’s Pages” the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has an autobiography of a bomb dog. Letting children read this story is a way for them to gain understanding of the dogs’ skills and to be prepared to appreciate them when they see the dogs at work. The dog who tells his story is a real FTA bomb dog named Truman. He explains, for example:

I can smell tiny traces of explosives and ammunition residue from guns; I can smell thousands of times better than any human. This is really important, because my smelling ability will help protect the public. Sometimes people do bad things to try to hurt others. I can help stop that from happening, or, if it has already happened, I can find evidence to help law enforcement officers find out who did it so that the person can never do it again.

The picture above shows Truman and his partner Joe checking cans for traces of explosives. Truman’s full autobiography is here.

Traveling Safely With Children

The holiday season is travel season for millions of families. That means for many, traveling with children. A website that has been online for over a decade, AirSafe.com, provides expert advice on a wide range of air travel subjects. For families who will be flying during the coming holidays AirSafe’s experienced advice is here: Top 10 Safety Tips for Traveling With Children.

The American Academy of Pediatrics also has a webpage of Travel Safety Tips. This advice is grouped by airplane, international and car. One of several sources cited is the Federal Aviation Administration’s Child Safety on Airplane page. The FAA page is the source of the above picture which illustrates a section giving the basics on child restraints.

Need for safer shelters at schools

USA Today reports that deadly tornados at school have shown the need for safer shelters. The report is illustrated by the above image from March 1, 2007 of a helicopter evacuating an injured person from Enterprise High School in Alabama. USA writers track the events and lessons learned in when the tornado killed eight students “even though the National Weather Service said Enterprise school officials and students followed appropriate safety measures before and during the tornado . . . .” The conclusion: “the storm demonstrated the need for a safe-room shelter.”

From Alabama’s Press-Register comes this opinion piece titled Alabama’s deadly lesson:

TWO IMPORTANT messages came out of a National Weather Service study of the fatal tornado that hit southeast Alabama nine months ago.

Eight students were killed at Enterprise High School when winds of up to 200 mph collapsed the school’s roof. The tornado that hit Enterprise was the worst of 31 twisters that struck 45 counties in Georgia and south Alabama in a sweep of storms that fatal day in March.

The first message from the report that’s important for the Enterprise community is this: Stop blaming school officials for the tragedy. Their decision to keep the children in the building was, the National Weather Service says, the right thing to do even if it didn’t turn out well.

“Dismissing the students could have been just as dangerous,” NWS meteorologist Glenn Lussky of La Crosse, Wis., told The Associated Press. Mr. Lussky led the study. “This is just one of those cases where everyone did everything they could,” he added.

The second message: Build reinforced, hardened safe rooms in every school. These are concrete-reinforced rooms with strong shutters or no windows, where students can quickly go when storm alarms sound.

Enterprise school officials learned the lesson in the worst way possible when the high school building couldn’t withstand high winds, and children died. The new schools being constructed in Enterprise will have “tornado shelter” rooms.

School officials throughout Alabama should include safe areas in all new schools and can look at reinforcing designated safe areas in existing school buildings.

Hurricanes are the worst storms for the Gulf Coast, and preparing for them gets lots of attention from officials and residents. The Enterprise tragedy showed that isolated tornadoes can be dangerous on a smaller, but equally deadly, scale.

They, too, deserve to be taken seriously, especially by school officials who have responsibility for the safety of children.

Needs Assessment Measure checklist for school safety

Whether you are an administrator, faculty member or parent a prime concern you have for schools is the safety of everyone involved. There are lots of factors for safety and a number of issues for each factor. TeachSafeSchools.org provides a school safety checklist here that looks at issues in terms of interventions:

School-wide Universal Interventions
Selected Interventions
Targeted Interventions

This TeachSafeSchools.org 35-point list is a very useful review. Any of us can use the list to go point-by-point regarding our own school. We will be left knowing a great deal about what may or may not need to be done to make ours a safe school.

How to avoid lead in your child’s lunch box

The Center for Environmental Health (CEH) page on Lead in Children’s Lunch Boxes is informative and links to additional sources of information. Is your child safe from this danger? Among the “Commonly Asked Questions” answered by the CEH is this basic one:

How dangerous are lunchboxes with lead?
The levels CEH found in the lunchboxes are not high enough by themselves to cause acute lead poisoning during normal use. However, with prolonged use or if your child is exposed to lead from other sources, a leaded lunchbox would add to their health risk. Because lead has been shown to cause developmental problem in young children at very low levels, CEH believes it is important to eliminate all controllable sources of lead exposure, including lunchboxes.