While it felt like summer last week, actual summer isn’t far off.
With it, local hospitals tend to see an increase in injuries in their emergency rooms.
Jennifer Doering is a physician assistant at the Aspirus Emergency Room in Wausau.
She says some of the bigger injuries they see are often with motorcycle and automobile accidents.
“Unfortunately, the last few years, we had a significant increase with ATV and UTV accidents, and they're often associated with alcohol, speed and inattentiveness,” said Doering. “People think they can go way faster than they can in these vehicles, but unfortunately, they're being ejected and they're not using the seat belts and the protective measures that are in place.”
In 2024 alone, 40 people died in ATV/UTV crashes in Wisconsin.
The Wisconsin DNR does have funding available for ATV/UTV organizations to use towards safety training.
Doering says injuries related to fireworks and campfires are also common in the summer months.
“Toddlers will fall into the fire pits, which are just right at that height, and then again, with adults, they can fall into the fire pits and suffer significant traumatic events,” she said. “We do see a share of firework injuries as well, especially around Fourth of July. Our new fireworks are really quite powerful, and some people forget, so they do hold them in their hand, and unfortunately, do suffer some significant injuries with those events.”
According to the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, more than half of camping injuries in children are caused by campfire burns.
