Two people were injured by centipedes, and no fewer than 22 suffered mishaps involving nightwear. The UK is a perilous place in all sorts of unusual ways, according to new statistics on hospital admissions.
The Department of Health figures, reported in The Times newspaper yesterday edition, also included people requiring hospital treatment in the UK for accidents which happened overseas.
Thus, of the near-million people seen by emergency hospital staff in the 12 months to April last year, six had been stung by scorpions, along with the 451 stung by hornets and 24 bitten by rats.
The house was no haven, with nine needing treatment for accidents with their beds and 22 exposed to "ignition or melting of nightwear," usually due to cigarettes or faulty electric blankets.
Other unusual problems which burdened the state-run National Health Service included nine people who experienced "accidental suffocation and strangulation in bed" and a child who attended hospital after a "prolonged stay in a weightless environment."
A Department of Health spokesman told The Times that the precise accident categories were set by the UN's World Health Organization, and could only speculate that the weightlessness might have been caused by a fairground ride.
In the natural world, 37 people were admitted as "victims of volcanic eruption," and 207 needed treatment after "coming into contact with plant thorns, spines and sharp leaves."
Among more traditional accidents, those involving non-power tools such as hammers affected 4,115 people, while around 2,000 more -- mainly children -- fell out of trees.
The data for admissions also included 138 people who had foreign objects left in their bodies following surgery, the newspaper said.
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
A Zurich city councilor has apologized and reportedly sought police protection against threats after she fired a sport pistol at an auction poster of a 14th-century Madonna and child painting, and posted images of their bullet-ridden faces on social media. Green-Liberal party official Sanija Ameti, 32, put the images on Instagram over the weekend before quickly pulling them down. She later wrote on social media that she had been practicing shots from about 10m and only found the poster as “big enough” for a suitable target. “I apologize to the people who were hurt by my post. I deleted it immediately when I
At first, Francis Ari Sture thought a human was trying to shove him down the steep Norwegian mountainside. Then he saw the golden eagle land. “We are staring at each other for, maybe, a whole minute,” Sture said on Monday. “I’m trying to think what’s in its mind.” The bird then attacked Sture five more times on Thursday last week, scratching and clawing the 31-year-old bicycle courier’s face and arms over 10 to 15 minutes as he sprinted down the mountain. The same eagle is believed to be responsible for attacks on three other people across a vast mountainous area of southern Norway
RSS