Do Vacations Kill?
Two people died this week riding "Shockwave" stand-up roller coasters at
King's Dominion parks--one in Hanover County, Va., and one in Santa Clara,
Calif. (To read the Washington Post's account, click here.) There is the usual back-and-forth about whether the
injuries were the fault of the riders or the amusement parks. But Chatterbox is
more interested in the broader question: Is leisure time more dangerous than
work?
The answer, of course, varies depending on what type of work you happen to
do. "In my world, anyway, people, sitting in offices, are obviously not at risk
very much," observes Jeffrey Hadley, a research associate at the Center for
Injury Research and Policy at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. A coal
miner, on the other hand, subjects himself to a lot of risk on the job. The
type of leisure you tend to prefer is also a factor. "Some people go on
vacation and lie on the beach," notes Hadley, "and some people do things that
are more exciting, like skiing and rock climbing." Presumably the folks who
seek physical thrills in their leisure activity tend not to get them on the
job, and people who get them on the job don't seek them out while on vacation.
But probably there are a few coal miners out there who go hang gliding in
August.
There's no question that vacations can cause harm. According to The Injury Fact Book , sports and recreation account
for "the majority of drownings, many firearm fatalities, about 10 percent of
all brain injuries ... 7 percent of spinal cord injuries ... and 13 percent of
facial injuries treated in hospitals." Overall, "more than 6,000 deaths each
year are associated with sports and recreation, not including the many
thousands that occur in connection with recreational use of motor vehicles in
traffic," the book says; three-quarters of the sports-and-recreation deaths
"result from water recreation." (The most dangerous water sports, in declining
order, are swimming, boating, and scuba diving.) But are vacations more
dangerous, in the aggregate, than normal life? Chatterbox, alas, couldn't pose
this question to the book's principal author, Susan P. Baker of the Johns
Hopkins School of Public Health, because ... she's on vacation!
But her book includes a chart that sheds a little light on the subject by
comparing the percentage of "unintentional injury deaths" in various categories
(drowning, falling object, etc.) in homes, "public buildings" such as offices,
industrial settings, and places where people engage in recreational activities.
Thus, 14.6 percent of drownings occur during recreation ,
compared with
12.8
percent at a home or resident
institution and 4.2 percent in a public building ,on a
farm, or in an industrial
setting or a mine . (A hauntingly
large 68.4 percent of drownings, however, are attributable to
other or unspecified causes.)
On the other hand, if you're going to die by falling , it's much more
likely to happen to you while you're at home: 51.5 percent of deaths as a
result of falling happen in a home or residential institution , compared
with only 0.8 percent during recreation , and 5.9 percent in
a public building ,on a farm ,or in an industrial
setting
or a mine . (Presumably those who die from falls at home are mostly old
people; for people under 65, falls are responsible for more recreational deaths
than any other recreational activity except swimming.)
Falling objects are most likely to get you at work
(
33.4
percent in a public building ,on a farm, or in
an industrial
setting or a mine, of which fully 20.1
percent is attributable to an industrial
setting or a mine ). But
home is pretty dangerous, too ( 25.8 percent in a home or resident
institution ). Vacations are pretty safe in this regard; only 1.1
percent of falling-object-related deaths occur during recreation .
However, lightning is more likely to kill you while you're engaged in
recreation ( 14.3 percent), with the workplace a close second
( 14 percent in a public building , on a farm ,or in an
industrial
setting or a mine ; farms are the biggest risk here,
responsible for
8.6
percent), and home placing third
( 12.4 percent at a home or resident institution ).
Collision with an object or person (apparently not one that's falling
on you)is the third-biggest vacation killer (after drowning and
lightning ); 11.2 percent of these deaths occur during
recreation , though most such deaths occur at work ( 27.6 percent
in a public building , on a farm ,
or in an industrial
setting or a mine ; industrial settings and mines are the biggest risk
here, responsible for 17.9 percent) and at home ( 23.9 percent in a
home or resident institution ).
It's important to remember, of course, that not engaging in certain
kinds of leisure activity (read: exercise) will also kill you; heart
disease remains the No. 1 cause of death in the United States. So the question,
"Are vacations more dangerous than work?" (which, on reflection, should really
be "Are vacations more dangerous than work or hanging around the house?") is a
complex one. Chatterbox will continue to collect data on this subject in hopes
of reaching a definitive conclusion next week.
[Correction, Aug. 29: Chatterbox misidentified both the amusement park and
the ride where the Santa Clara, Calif., death occurred. The park was Great
America, and the ride was Drop Zone, which apparently isn't a roller coaster.
(Great America and King's Dominion share a common parent company, Paramount
Parks.) But Chatterbox's general alarmism about amusement-park dangers was, if
anything, understated; according to NBC News,
emergency-room visits attributable to amusement-park rides have increased by 24
percent during the last five years.]
