THIS AND THAT: Watch out for the many dangers of summer | Features

Summer is a great time for fun and relaxation – BUT!

There’s always that BUT that comes with some sort of warning, and here’s another one. Recently, I received an email alerting me to a Facebook post from a friend in another city. I often ignore these emails since they aren’t sent specifically to me, but this time I clicked on the link to see what was written.

Doris (not her real name, of course) said she had a bad fall last Saturday. She suffered broken bones, a concussion, many bumps, bruises and sprains, and memory loss. And that included a trip to the emergency room in an ambulance.

What I read surprised me. I sent Doris an email expressing my condolences and wishing her well. What she wrote in response is a warning to us all.

That day, there was supposed to be a neighborhood picnic, which had to be moved to Doris and Patrick’s house because of rain. The problem started when a neighbor brought his grill over half an hour before the party started, not knowing that there was a leak. This leak caused the grill to explode.

“I couldn’t reach our fire extinguisher right away, so I ran about the length of a football field in my sandals to get one for my sister-in-law,” Doris said.

While Doris was out, Patrick found the family’s fire extinguisher and managed to put out the fire before the fire department arrived. When Doris rushed back, not knowing that the fire was out, she fell and hit her head. At least that’s what she assumed. She has no memory of the fall, only of the injuries she sustained.

Doris reflexively stuck to her self-assigned task and made her way back to the house with a bleeding head and a fire extinguisher in her hand. Paramedics took care of her injuries and those of the grill owner.

“I have a concussion, a sprained wrist, a fracture under the eye and on the right jaw, cuts and bruises, and a sprained ankle,” Doris later wrote.

The grill owner suffered burns to his legs that required skin grafts. Still, Doris is thankful that things weren’t worse. Patrick and the grill owner could have been seriously injured or killed, she says. Since no other guests from the neighborhood were there at the time, others weren’t in danger. In times of crisis, we realize what is really important.