WGTS ninety one point nine. It is Jerry and Claude. Thanks for being here. It won't be long now to the celebrations for the fourth of July. They're right around the corner. That means parades and cookouts and fireworks. And that also means there are some safety hazards that could come our way.
Yeah. Definitely. And, you know, you're having fun and sometimes you let your down, but we should not do that, especially on the fourth. We hear about accidents all the time.
Okay. So we've got doctor Neil Roy, who's a chief medical officer at Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center, and Patricia Hertz, registered dietitian with the Center for Fitness and Health at Shady Grove Medical Center. Gonna give us some tips on how to say, stay safe this fourth. So, doctor Roy, fireworks is a big part of, the holiday.
As a matter of fact, people get their hands on fireworks early and they start, you know, start lighting them start lighting them up early, doctor Roy. What are the safest ways to handle sparklers and fireworks?
All emergency room physicians hate fireworks. And the reason why is every fourth of July, there are invariably some fireworks related injuries.
The first thing is keep children away from fireworks. It's so tempting to give a child a sparkler and have them hold it. The tip of a sparkler can be almost five hundred and above degrees when it's actually lighting. That can cause a really severe burn.
So make sure that children are never holding sparklers or fireworks. Never hold fireworks in your hand. And what that means is if you have, like, a popper or and the firework that explodes, if you hold it in your hand and particularly particularly with a closed fist, it can cause a lot of damage to your hand and your fingers.
Always make sure to have water and a fire extinguisher nearby. Fires can occur in just a second. And with fireworks, even if the grass looks moist, it takes just a few dry leaves to cause a fire to occur. My recommendation is go to the fireworks displays and not try and create your own.
Of course, it wouldn't be the fourth of July without all sorts of all American foods. When it comes to those cookouts, what are the biggest food safety tips that people should know, Patricia?
Yeah. That's always on my mind whenever I go to a cookout. Although you want to enjoy it, thinking about food safety is really, really important because we tend to be more lenient about, our hand washing and don't seem to, put a big emphasis on how long the food stays out. But in the hot weather bacteria goes really fast, making the foods unsafe.
If you are outside for over an hour, I would absolutely make sure that the food is well chilled or stays, at least inside of a cooler. As a rule of thumb, food can sit out for basically an hour in extreme heat. Again, that would be ninety degrees and over. Two hours in the danger zone would be, forty degrees to one hundred forty degrees.
But usually when we're outside, at a cookout, it's gonna be a lot hotter. So really remember to keep yourself and the food safe.
Thanks so much, Patricia. Doctor Roy, appreciate those tips. If you want more health tips or wanna hear this one again, check out our website, wgts919.com.
And a big thank you to Adventist HealthCare for sponsoring today's Health Minute.
