TINA GORMAN
WESTFIELD – Springfield’s Baystate Medical Center treated approximately 80 people over this past icy weekend.
“We’ve seen a lot of fractures – wrists, ankles, fingers, things like that,” said Keith O’Connor, senior public affairs specialist for Baystate. “People try to balance themselves when they fall and, when they go down, the hands try to break the fall.”
O’Connor said that the injuries sustained by senior citizens this weekend were overwhelmingly concentrated in the upper arms and hips, while younger patients tended to suffer from wrist and ankle fractures most.
“It’s all how a person falls and older and younger folks fall differently,” he said.
As to how residents can protect themselves from sustaining serious injuries due to slippery sidewalks and walkways, O’Connor paraphrased a recent interview given by Baystate’s Vice Chair of Emergency Medicine Dr. Joseph Schmidt.
“Basically what he said was to stay indoors, especially the elderly, unless it’s life-essential such as a special appointment,” he said, adding that elderly folks traversing icy conditions should be accompanied for their forays outside.
“Have someone you can hold onto and someone – whether it’s a neighbor or a relative – who is salting or sanding your stairs and walkways for you,” said O’Connor of Dr. Schmidt’s advice.
Tina Gorman, executive director of the Westfield Council on Aging, said Tuesday that she wasn’t aware of any of her seniors sustaining injuries over the weekend but said that she and her staff at the Westfield Senior Center have long stressed the same logic put forth by Dr. Schmidt.
“Most of our seniors, when they see the weather is bad, they don’t go out, which is our recommendation to them,” said Gorman. “When you see ice coming down and freezing rain, don’t go out.”
Gorman added that, while black ice is a problem for drivers and pedestrians of all ages, seniors are affected by it most, especially those with vision problems.
“If they have visual limitations, they simply can’t see (black ice),” she said. “So what’s problematic for us can really turn into a major crisis for them.”
Seniors who frequent the Westfield Senior Center are told at the start of the winter season to stock up on canned goods and non-perishables such as peanut butter for when the weather gets particularly treacherous during the winter months.
Gorman’s husband Gary is a chiropractor who practices in Agawam and during an appearance on his wife’s radio program, broadcast on the first Wednesday of every month on WSKB 89.5 FM from 6:15 to 7:00 , highlighted ways to stay upright even on slick, icy sidewalks.
“He said that you want to take very small steps and to not have a lot of things in your arms so that if you do fall, you can use your arms to catch yourself,” she said. “You should also keep low to the ground when walking.”
Gorman said that she sees many of her seniors applying these practices.
“A lot of them really tip-toe through it and we try not to let them carry things out to their cars,” she said. “But I tell this to every student intern we have, the difference between a slip and a fall for someone whose older versus someone who is younger is that, for someone who is older, that often results in hospitalization which then results in a nursing home placement.”
