February 9, 2017

The most common injuries everywhere but Colorado are open wounds or bruising.

(In Colorado, it's falling.) But what are the most disproportionately common injuries in each state? In Wisconsin, it's spine dislocation.

60 comments:

Bob Ellison said...

Ice skating.

Michael K said...

I wonder if that area with "suffocation" is an area with lots of space heaters?

Laslo Spatula said...

I would like to see a colorful state-by-state map of the most common items found stuck in people's rectums by ER doctors.

Then I want to compare that map to state voting patterns.

To make it seem Socially Important.

Although it really is mostly about the things people put up their assholes and can't get out.

That's funny stuff.

I am Laslo.

Luke Lea said...

Somehow I don't trust that graph (graph?) or whatever you call it. Disproportionate to what? I don't even want to find out.

Laslo Spatula said...

From the Map: "Maryland: Sprained hand."

From all those Elites of DC jerking each other off.

I imagine lip ailments is pretty far up there, too.

I am Laslo.

Anonymous said...

"Head injury" -- Florida Man.

(I admit, even I, a Southerner by birth, looked at the labels on the lower-right states and immediately thought, "Hold my beer and watch this!"

David53 said...

What a strange map, is it meant to be purely informational? Or useful to people in healthcare in some way?

I like Laslo's idea.

Mark said...

Does Wisconsin have a lot of "slip and fall" or "heavy lifting" claims? If genuine, that could maybe slip a disc. If not genuine, that guy chasing the ambulance could probably find a doctor to say that the claimant "slipped" a disc.

David53 said...

Does your health care policy cost less if you live in an "insect bite" state?

Snark said...
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Snark said...

Probably the unnecessary Trump contortion Althouse has become fonder of in recent times throwing out the Wisconsin stats. :P

Yancey Ward said...

If you have ever skated, a back injury of any kind won't surprise you.

Yancey Ward said...

Michael K,

Possibly- they seem to be states with higher elevations for the populations centers, and it would make sense that gas burners put out slightly more CO than at lower elevations.

However, it could also be from visitors overexerting themselves at elevations they aren't accustomed to.

So of the ones from the South might be football related.

Rick said...

From all those Elites of DC jerking each other off.

No need, there are plenty of political groupies around. It's not like being a rock star, but it's not like being an accountant either. Remember Washingtonienne?

rehajm said...

Angel-Dyne speaks for me.

Wince said...

MA: Concussions.

Yeah, from banging my head against the wall trying to post comments on Althouse!

JohnAnnArbor said...

Hand injury. Makes sense; we still do SOME manufacturing and farming around here.

JackWayne said...

If you're thinking about moving, states with insect bites look pretty good compared to spinal injuries....

The Godfather said...

Because I live in NC, I'm more likely to be injured by an insect bite than is somebody who lives in Florida. Having lived in Florida, I'd rather be bitten by a NC insect than a FL insect any time. Some of those buggers are BIG. You can hear them coming, humming Fee Fie Fo.

Fernandinande said...

Angel-Dyne said...
"Head injury" -- Florida Man.


Grape mimes think alike.

"Florida Man once arrested for fighting drag queen with a tiki torch while dressed like KKK member now running for mayor."

Fernandinande said...

The "Suffocation Belt" has a good ring to it.

Billy Oblivion said...

@Yancy:

The burners wouldn't put out more CO2 than at lower elevations--CO2 is the product of good combustion, Carbon **DI**oxide. It also doesn't really lead to suffocation as it doesn't bind to red blood vessels at all.

They would put out more Carbon *MON*oxide, CO because of incomplete combustion. CO binds REALLY well with red blood cells, but doesn't (obviously) work as well as O2.

@Ms. Althouse:

Falling isn't an injury. Falling is what causes injury (well, technically the stop at the bottom causes the injury). Sense Article Makes No.

Billy Oblivion said...

To follow up:
> We can’t say for sure why this is. But the vast majority of “suffocation” diagnoses
> were for hypoxemia, the medical term for low blood oxygen. Interestingly, hypoxemia >
> can be caused by exertion at high altitudes, where oxygen is scarce.

Take the cog rail up to Pikes Peak. Do jumping jacks until the world spins.

mesquito said...

Yeah. What's with the suffocation in the mountain time zone?

Michael K said...

I would like to see a colorful state-by-state map of the most common items found stuck in people's rectums by ER doctors.

I was actually going to write a paper about all the stuff we retrieved at LA County. I took photographs of a lot of them but just got too busy.

Several were particularly interesting.

One was a badminton shuttlecock. I'm sure you can do something with that one, Laslo. Lots of jokes about what a rough game badminton was.

One was a Smuckers jam jar. With the lid to the rear, so to speak. So, when the resident looked in through the sigmoidoscope, he saw "Smuckers"

We pulled out so many vibrators that I was going to write a letter to the manufacturer asking them to add a ring in the blunt end to help pull it out. THey were slippery.

One guy came in with the battery still going. He was vibrating there on the gurney and said, "I don't care if you get it out. Just TURN IT OFF !"

One fellow resident pulled out a huge carrot with a condom on it !

He presented it to the staff and said the patient told "some cock and bull story: about how it got there.

Years later, after I was in practice we got a guy with a water glass up his ass. My partner got it out. These are not easy to get out without breaking the glass. A week later he was back with another one.

We saw lots of "broom handle perforations" which were no laughing matter. The guy was probably sitting on the broom handle jerking off and slipped.

One guy really slipped and the broom handle went through his colon, his liver and into his heart. He died.

Good times and funny stories. Most of them.

Robert Cook said...

"What's with the suffocation in the mountain time zone?"

Adult children "euthanizing" their elderly parents.

FullMoon said...

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JHapp said...

I am hoping someone in this administration finally pressures the CDC or maybe state governors to do something about lyme disease. It is primarily a rural/republican disease, as city folk generally don't pull weeds, hunt, or rake leaves. Democrats are more tuned into breast cancer, hiv, gender reassignment, and hepatitis. Easiest way to prevent lyme disease is to decimate the deer population.

AlbertAnonymous said...

Laslo and Michael K thanks for the funny ER anecdotes. Years ago I knew a guy who worked in the ER in an inner city. Bulletproof glass separating the intake staff from the outside world, and a microphone so the new patients could be heard in the back.

He told the story of how a a guy came in and sheepishly whispered that he had a candle stuck up his ass. After being asked to "speak up" because he wasn't heard, he said louder "I have a candle stuck in my ass" and an unidentified DR voice from the back yelled up "Will you please ask him if it's lit?"

The entire place burst into laughter (other than the patient i suspect).

Francisco D said...

Michael K,

You confirmed my decision 40+ years ago not to seriously consider med school. I just don't have the stomach for it.

I have the self-control to deal with patients with ridiculous psychiatric bullshit (i.e., I never laugh), but I would have a difficult time doing your job without laughing uproariously.

buwaya said...

California seems normal, oddly.

Louisiana - "Facial Injury" seems to fit in disturbingly well with Maryland "Sprained hand"

An epidemic of FedGov employees running down to LA to take out their frustrations on the Cajuns?

RBE said...

Small time logging, snowmobile and skiing accidents would possibly explain spinal dislocation for Vermont.

Marc in Eugene said...

'Animal bite', Missouri; only state in the Union, it looks like; living in the 'show me' state has its consequences, evidently.

Che Dolf said...

"The mountain states need a new safe word"

- Gabriel Rossman

Virgil Hilts said...

A friend misread Illinois label as "Racial Injury" until it was enlarged and felt really bad that her brain had filled in the ambiguous letter with R instead of F.

Big Mike said...

From Lake Michigan west to the Pacific spinal dislocation or similar (sprained back) seems surprisingly common. Could that be due to falls on slippery walkways?

Pettifogger said...

Having lived most of my life in Texas, I'm well acquainted with insect bites, but I've never considered them an "injury." On the other hand, I have so far avoided scorpions.

mockturtle said...

I wonder if the 'spinal dislocation' states are those with the highest number of disability claims.

harkin said...

Am I the only one who does not think "motor vehicle accident" is a type of injury?

Mark said...
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Mark said...

Could that be due to falls on slippery walkways?

Lots of snow and ice up north. Maybe some fraudsters too.

And it wouldn't necessarily involve a fall. Just the slipping on ice and the body trying to compensate could throw out and herniate a disc.

wholelottasplainin said...

Here in MA, I heard a radio ad claiming 3 million concussions occur very year in America.

That would be 8200 per day.

Divided by 50 states, that would be 164 per day.


I have my doubts. What's the evidence?

And speaking of radio ads in Mass: Rush's station Radio 1430 has been running for FIVE FREAKIN YEARS, an ad from the American Lung Association, featuring a little girl telling us how they are "fighting for us to have clean air.. FIVE...FREAKING YEARS.

I want that little girl to be suffocated with a MyPillow!

Shaddap, already!




wholelottasplainin said...

And at that same radio station a shelter pet PSA featuring a mutt named "Satchmo" has been spoken of, as if he were a purebred, for five long years. Dozens of times a day.

If he hasn't found a home after all this time, I want him euthanized.

DimeStoreDave said...

Probably different ways of reporting auto accidents in each state. General cause could be auto accidents in most of the states where leg injury, concussion, spine, etc. are reported. Or maybe not.

mockturtle said...

Seems to me that a motor vehicle accident could result in spinal dislocation, concussion and any number of fractures, lacerations and contusions. So, no, motor vehicle accident is not a type of injury but a cause of injury.

Nonetheless, when I worked in a trauma center in the late 1980's, most of our patients were categorized as: MVA [motor vehicle accident], GSW [gunshot wound] and SW [stab wound].

Ron said...

There must be some correlation between spinal dislocation and cheese eating. Now you say, 'Ron, correlation is not causality', and I know that, but it's what passes for science these days! Close enough for fake news.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

My sister used to be an ER nurse. Once they got a guy in who had a large bottle of Johnson's Baby Powder up his ass. He said he accidentally sat on it.

Yeah, you never know when you might accidentally sit on a bottle of baby powder. Johnson's needs to put warning labels on their bottles.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Another time, there was a woman who couldn't get a Magic 8 ball out of her cooch without some help from the ER. Trying to read her fortune, and lo, it just rolled up right there.

"Outlook not so good," I guess.

Bruce Hayden said...

@Dr K - one of the guys on my yearly male bonding ski group was an ER Doc, and he often brought a resident along. So we got a lot of those anal stories. There were apparently some smaller mammals who were alive when they entered... One of their recurring problems were light bulbs, which go in fine, but are very fragile.

One of my fonder memories was when that guy was playing Pinochle. Our "chef", with newly sharpened knives (after maybe 20 years -probably need it again), sliced his finger. We were expecting some sort of masterful show of suturing. Nope - without taking his eyes off the game, he whipped out the Superglue, and glued the wound shut. It was always sort of comforting, in the CO backcountry to have 3 or 4 docs all no, including a trauma guy. Until the time we lost one of us through a cornice. And who was it? The trauma surgeon, of course. As with so many in that field, he is an adrenaline junkie, taking more risks than the rest of us. Luckily, he only dropped about 20 feet, into snow, and was fine.

Which brings us around to the article and the suffocation belt. I have lived in much of it, but primarily, probably CO, at the center of it. As far as high altitude problems go, CO is, by far, above the rest. For High Altitude Pulminary Edema (HAPE) and the like, the break for most seems to be around 8500 feet. The towns in Summit County (Keystone, Breckenridge, Copper Mtn) start just below 9k, which means that you sleep above 8500, after heavy exercise. Vail, Steamboat, Aspen, etc are lower, so don't have nearly the problems. And most of the cities and towns in the "suffocation belt" are far below this.

So, about 25 years ago, we went into one of the 10th Mtn Huts, which tend to be located just st below tree line at about 12k. We had three MDs along, including that trauma surgeon. Second night, my lungs filled up and I had a hard time breathing. They all agreed that it was most likely double bronchitis. We skied out that day, to go into another hut for another two nights. By the time we got to the cars at maybe 9k, I was feeling fine. But, ultimately discretion won out over valor, and I bailed for Dillon (9k). Next day, I had the double bronchitis back, and went into the clinic in nearby Frisco. After announcing the (self) diagnosis, the staff pretty much broke into laughter. They popped an O2 monitor on my finger, and, sure enough, it was in the mid-80s. An X-ray confirmed the correct diagnosis - HAPE. Turns out, the clinics in Summit Cty, County probably see more of this stuff than anywhere else in the country, and much of the world. After some O2, I popped down to Denver for the night, and was back in Dillon when the group returned. They asked about my double bronchitis, and I handed them the X-rays. Turns out they all practice medicine at maybe 1k elevation, and never really run into altitude related problems. I was reminded of this story last week when I was packing for the move down to AZ and found those x-rays, squirreled away among my personal mementos.

I shouldn't have been surprised though with having a susceptibility to HAPE - it had almost killed one of my brothers a decade and a half earlier. A researcher at the CU medical school had studied us in the aftermath, popping us in an atmospheric chamber, where he found that we had what he termed a low drive to breath. Even in Denver, the attending physician had misdiagnosed that one. In short, a genetic susceptibility to this sort of thing. Good news is that I can now recognize it, and know how to minimize its effects on me (esp don't over exert until after 2nd night at altitude).

mockturtle said...

Bruce, my paternal grandmother lived in Boulder County all of her life and loved to climb. I have a photo of her and my grandfather with a few others in 1925 on the Long's Peak summit. She was wearing a dress! :-D

Levi Starks said...

Missouri isn't that hard to figure out, one trip to the stlouis animal shelter tells the story, you go up and down the isle and it's pit bull, pit bull, pit bull mix, pit bull.... you get the idea, and almost everyone knows someone that's had a snake (water moccasin) drop into their canoe on a float trip and decided to play with it.

Marc in Eugene said...

Badly-raised, -trained pit bulls and vicious snakes-- I'll avoid Missouri, I think.

Bruce Hayden said...

@Mock - my paternal grandparents moved to Denver a year or two before that with my father. He lived over 90 years in CO, but we could call him a New Yorker. Not surprised at the dresses, but actually saw my grandmother in pants more than my mother, thanks to growing up in OK horseback riding. They ended up with a girls camp and we rode with her a lot. Population was enough lower back then, that our grandparents might have met.

My grandfather loved to photograph CO, and we have a lot of pictures of his from the 1920s up through the 1960s. My favorites are one of the Garden of the Gods without any roads through them, and what I thought had been Longs, but was informed was a couple peaks over by my next brother a couple weeks ago (who is working on getting all the 14k peaks).. We all went to camp by Estes Park, so we all climbed Longs at some point or another. Except that my father took both me, as the oldest, and the youngest up, as young teenagers. Unfortunately, the youngest liked climbing too well, and died in a climbing accident in Boulder Canyon when a senior in college. Which made my acrophobia enough worse that I wasn't about to take my kid up Longs when they were old enough - they ended up going up when attending that same camp by Estes Park.

mockturtle said...

I was shocked at what Estes Park has become since I was a kid. We liked to party up there as teens when it was just a mountain hamlet. Both of my parents were born and raised in CO. Dad in the Boulder area and Mom in Fort Collins. My brother and I often spent summers there on my grandparents' cattle ranch. Now it's all subdivisions.

Yancey Ward said...

Billy Oblivion,

Sheesh, just read more carefully what I actually wrote!

rehajm said...

Rush's station Radio 1430 has been running for FIVE FREAKIN YEARS, an ad from the American Lung Association, featuring a little girl telling us how they are "fighting for us to have clean air.. FIVE...FREAKING YEARS.

I've wished the Cars for Kids kids would finish her off, then be caught in the act and thus incarcerated.

Bruce Hayden said...

@Mock - you sound a bit like my sister-in-law and her family. Expect your families probably had met hers. Estes Park has changed, but not as dramatically as, IMHO, say, Fort Collins or Boulder. Some real history there - like the Stanley Steemers that would ferry guests from Loveland up to the Stanley hotel in Estes. Talking of which, friend had his wedding reception there maybe 30 years ago. Apparently his grandfather had been the chef there, and his father partially grew up there. Now dwarfed by the shopping around it. Don't want to drive through the middle of town in the summer - but you can easily bypass it if you want. Was there a bit when I lived in Ft Collins, and then every summer when my kid was in camp there. Indeed, they were the fourth generation to have some camping exposure there. My grandparents spent a number of summers at the YMCA camp there, when my father was growing up. They loved it so well that they opened their own camp (SW of Denver).

Spent most of the 1980s in Fort Collins, maybe a decade into growth from a sleepy ag school college town to the high tech Mecca it has become. My office mate had been a Navy pilot, who had grown up there, and tells of coming home one time on leave to find it had seemingly doubled in length down College. Well more than doubled since I left. Still marvel at the growth every time we cut through to take the US 287 short cut from I-25 to Laramie on I-80. When I was there, it still had its rural roots - a lot of the cowboys in the bars were real, or at least lived on farms or ranches. And we worked a half a mile from the cattle auction. Still is the place where E WY, WNB, and NE CO comes to shop on the weekends - you still see almost as many bucking horse plates as green ones at the mall there. No doubt, your ancestors wouldn't recognize it any more.

Boulder has changed, and hasn't. We have been calling it the People's Republic (PRB) since I was in college in the late 1960s. A lot of new stuff, but much of the housing stock is very old, esp compared to places like Ft Collins, where most is under 30 years old. The liberals first banned expansion in the city itself, driving up the cost of everything. Then, of the county, after the surrounding area started filling up. I personally don't see the allure of living in a 60+ year old house there, when I could live in a brand new one, 20 miles south, that was twice as big, much better insulated, etc, at a lower price. Prices there are grotesque. But my kid, paying much too much, living with 4 or 5 other grad students, loves it.

mockturtle said...

Interesting, Bruce. My great grandmother lived in a huge Tudor style house in Boulder in the early 20th century but when my great-grandfather died she had to take in boarders to pay the staff and taxes. It is no longer there but instead, a shopping mall. It was on Pearl Street.

Bruce Hayden said...

Pearl Street - the mall there is maybe the center of town, and has been for quite some time. Remember experiencing the Mall Crawl there maybe 30 years ago on Halloween. One of the craziest Halloween parties in the country. Apparently shut down awhile back thanks to how crazy it got. Hard to envision a beautiful Tudor there.

mockturtle said...

I'm not absolutely certain it was on Pearl St. I have a couple of pictures of it but they don't show the street.