'Tis the season to be jolly, but its also the season for men to be falling.
Along with holiday decorations and Christmas trees comes more danger in the form of accidents around the home.
"The holidays are especially tough times for falls from ladders," said Dr. Bruce Adams, chief of emergency medicine at University Hospital. "Us men, we want to get up there hang the lights, get up on the roof, put Santa and the reindeer on the roof, and we fall."
He says that ladders are deadly.
"Ladders kill more men than electrocutions, snakebites, avalanches, floods, all those combined," Dr. Adams noted.
On an average day in the U.S., 500 patients will show up in an emergency room with an injury from a ladder. And one of those patients will die. In all, 90 percent of those patients are men and most of those are middle-aged men.
Fires happen more frequently this time of year as well.
"The three most likely days of the year for a house to burn up from a candle are Christmas, New Year's, and New Year's Eve," Dr. Adams said.
Candles aren't the only problem. Dried out Christmas trees also present a danger.
"You want the needles to bend and not break," Dr. Adams explained. "You want them to be green and not brown."
You also want to make sure you have safe electrical lighting.
"This is not the stuff you pull out of your grandmother's attic from 25 years ago. You want to have good stuff that is safe," Dr. Adams warned. "And don't put it all on one electrical cord."
For more men's health information call 210-358-3045. You can also find the rest of our Real Men Wear Gowns stories at WearTheGown.com.