It’s easy to write ice off as a norm of Canadian life. However, statistics show that ice poses a significant danger. Each year, Canadians average almost 8,000 hospitalizations due to slipping and falling on ice.* These hospitalizations involve cases where a patient must be kept for longer than a day, often due to severely broken bones that require surgery or head injuries that must be monitored. In even more severe cases, comas and even death may result.
The good news is that these injuries are preventable. In an interview with CBC, Dr. Darren Markland, an intensive-care physician, stated that accidents as a result of icy surfaces would be preventable “if there was more rigorous maintenance and perhaps more enforcement of private owners who weren’t making their sidewalks and accesses safer.”
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