The Most Common Causes of Death in the Home (and How to Prevent Them)

Posted on January 11, 2024 by resourcefulman

Your home is your refuge and refuge. It’s also a fairly common place to die in unpredictable—and usually preventable—accidents.

Our home is usually a refuge, a place where we expect to feel safe; This is one reason why a common response to trauma is to simply want to go home, where we can supposedly feel safe. That’s why we put a lot of effort, time and money into things like security systems . We want to ensure that outside threats stop at our front door.

But, unfortunately, threats often come from inside the home. More than 120,000 preventable injuries and deaths occur in homes every year, and most of them are caused by things you probably don’t think are particularly dangerous.

Poisoning

You may think you’re safe from poisoning if you stay at home minding your own business, but poisoning is actually one of the most common ways to die in the home. For example, in 2021, more than 80,000 people were poisoned in their homes, accounting for about 65% of all home deaths that year. That same year, there were more than two million calls to poison control centers, and more than three-quarters of these poisonings were accidents.

How did this happen? Well, many things in your home can poison you if you use them incorrectly or consume them for any reason. Cleaning products are quite toxic if accidentally ingested, and overdoses of common medications like acetaminophen (aka Tylenol) or stronger painkillers are usually classified as poisoning, which explains a lot. Even houseplants that just sit around and mind their own business are responsible for more than 20,000 poisoning calls, many of which involve children.

You can protect yourself and your children from accidental poisoning by following some simple guidelines:

Keep medications in a designated place, preferably out of reach of children. Do not store medications where they could be confused with something else (such as candy), and always read labels to find out the maximum dosage.
Likewise, keep cleaning products separate from food and preferably in a locked cupboard or out of the reach of children.
Never use household cleaning products for any other purpose (such as cleaning dishes or washing food) and never use containers for food and cleaning products at the same time.
Always wash your hands after handling cleaning products, plants, or medications.

waterfall

Next on the list of ways to die in your home are falls, accounting for 23% of all accidental deaths in the home (nearly 30,000 in 2021 alone). In fact, the number of accidental deaths from falls is getting noticeably worse: the number of deaths from falls in the home has increased by about 25% over the past few years. Most falls involve your worst enemy in the home: the stairs . And yes, most fall deaths occur in people over 75, which makes sense, but being young doesn’t make you invulnerable, and plenty of young people fall down slippery stairs all the time , risking injury and death.

There are a few basic things you can do to reduce your risk of falling and getting injured:

Pay attention. Simply watching your feet and being aware of where you step can reduce your risk of falling, especially when going up or down stairs. Walking down the stairs is not the time to multitask or check your phone.
Light the way. Well-lit areas will help you see obstacles before you trip over them, and using night lights and marker switches with glow-in-the-dark stickers (or using glowing wall signs) will help you maintain your balance and orientation as you walk.
Add security. All stairs should have handrails, and you should always use handrails when going up and down stairs. And if you have slippery areas in your home (especially stairs), add non-slip tape or carpeting to reduce the risk.
Bathrooms can be dangerous places to fall due to water pooling on tile floors. Installing bars on shower walls can help prevent injuries caused by slipping while bathing, and adding a mat with a non-slip backing can help reduce this risk.
When doing housework, always use a ladder to reach things and make sure the ladder has enough weight capacity for what it will support.
When using a ladder, always ensure that it is level and fully open so that the supports lock into place. Never stand at the very top of a ladder, and never bend or stretch to reach anything while on a ladder.

Fire

In fact, fire and smoke account for only about 2% of all home accidents. And this is notable because there are many reasons why a deadly fire can start: failure to clear lint from your dryer; allowing your smoke detector batteries to fail; using worn or damaged extension cords; or even candles, which account for 3% of all fire deaths .

Fire is generally a fairly serious threat, which may help explain its low mortality rate in the home. Most people know that their smoke detectors should be on and they know to get away as quickly as possible if there is a fire. But you can do more to prevent fires in your home.

Always use candle holders and place candles in areas where they are unlikely to be knocked over and away from flammable materials. And always extinguish candles when leaving the room. Better yet, consider switching to battery-powered candles.
Never leave an open flame (such as a burner on a stove) unattended.
Always have a working fire extinguisher in the kitchen or near any fireplace in the house.
Immediately replace any extension cords that are noticeably frayed, and contact an electrician if your lights flicker or if any switches or outlets feel hot to the touch or spark when something is plugged in.

Choking and mechanical asphyxiation

About 4,500 people die in their homes from suffocation or “mechanical asphyxiation,” which, according to the National Security Council, means “deaths from hanging and strangulation, and from suffocation in closed or confined spaces; landslides; or bedding, plastic bags or similar materials.”

While it’s unlikely that your pajamas will suffocate you in your sleep, you can prevent suffocation by taking a few smart steps:

Tie the hanging ropes together like cords for window blinds.
Never go to bed with plastic bags (such as dry cleaning bags) on your bed.
Be mindful of your food while eating, chew it thoroughly and take your time. Never run or walk while eating – always eat while sitting.
Learn how to administer first aid for choking , including the Heimlich maneuver. Also learn how to perform the Self-Heimlich on yourself in case you start to feel out of breath while alone.

Drowning

In 2021, about 1,300 people drowned in their homes—many of them children—and many involved innocuous bodies of water such as bathtubs, buckets, toilets or hot tubs. After all, it only takes an inch or two of water to drown a person, especially when combined with another type of accident that causes you to momentarily lose consciousness.

To prevent accidental drownings at home, you should

Never leave small children unattended in the water.
Buy a pool fence if you have small children in the house.
Never drink alcohol or other substances while in water (such as a hot tub or hot tub).
Never leave water containers open or full. Throw away tubs, buckets and other containers when not in use and keep toilet lids down.

Temperature

One of the main purposes of your home is to protect you from the elements, including extreme temperatures. Some homes, of course, do this better than others, depending on their insulation, weatherproofing, and climate control capabilities, but most homes can protect you from the worst extremes.

But about 1,000 people die in their homes from extreme temperatures—for example, an elderly couple in South Carolina was found dead in a home with an internal temperature of 120 degrees after an apparent malfunction in their heating system. And extreme cold combined with poverty or faulty heaters can be just as deadly .

To protect yourself from freezing or baking in your own home, there are several steps you can take:

Inspect . Check your heating and cooling systems before each season change. Many local utility companies will schedule an inspection of your furnace, boiler, or air conditioning systems.
Pay attention . Check weather reports and sign up for alerts from your local government. If extreme heat or cold is forecast, be careful and make sure your systems are working. If your heat or air conditioning isn’t working, consider staying with friends or family until temperatures return to normal or you can make repairs.
Know the symptoms . Familiarize yourself with the symptoms of heat- and cold- related illnesses . At the first sign of any of these symptoms, seek help or find a place to warm up or cool down.

Shots

You might think, this is America, of course people die in their homes from gunshots all the time. And yet not so much. For example, in 2021 there were only 400 accidental gun deaths in the home. While that’s 400 too many, it’s still a minuscule number compared to other dangers lurking around your home. Most people who have guns in the home follow strict safety procedures by keeping their guns unloaded and secured when not in use. Many of these deaths involve children accessing and playing with firearms, including very young children who may not fully understand what they are playing with. Even if you don’t have children of your own, you should keep your guns securely under lock and key so that no one without training and experience can gain access to them.

Preventing accidental gunshot injuries in the home involves some basic safety rules that most gun owners are familiar with:

Practice safe gun storage in a secure, locked gun safe and always store your guns there when not in use.
Always assume the weapon is loaded.
Never play with a weapon or use it for any purpose other than that for which it was intended.

Bleach

Cleaning products are dangerous, especially if mixed incorrectly. Too many people assume that just because a store sells you a set of products, they can be safely used together, and as a result there are nearly 100,000 calls to poison control centers related to household cleaning products.

But you don’t have to swallow cleaning products to die from them. One of the most common mistakes is mixing bleach with substances that cause a deadly reaction, such as vinegar. You might think that combining bleach and vinegar will produce a super cleaner that will leave your home spotless. Instead, you get chlorine gas . And a trip to the emergency room, if you’re lucky. To prevent such accidents, never mix cleaning products unless the labels indicate otherwise .

DIY repair

Renovating your home to make it more comfortable and inviting is a time-tested way to spend time in your home. But it is also a time-tested way to die . Home remodeling and renovation projects use tools of all kinds that are essentially murder weapons in disguise , especially power tools, which should never be handled unless you are familiar with their uses and limitations. They also affect the very structure of your home, which can be compromised in a variety of deadly ways, from accidentally striking live wiring to removing structural members that can cause serious injury.

Even if you’re quite experienced and follow basic safety rules, there are still plenty of ways you can hurt yourself while doing household chores, as we ‘ve noted here at Lifehacker :

Microwave ovens retain a significant – and quite lethal – electrical charge for a very long time after being unplugged.
Garage door springs store an incredible amount of energy, and attempting to replace them without the proper tools and training is very dangerous.
Building a death trap , such as a deck that will eventually collapse, is quite easy if you don’t know anything about engineering – never assume that just because something you’ve built seems strong that it can actually support weight .

Ultimately, to stay safe when tackling projects around the house, you should never assume that something is safe: always double check the power, gas, and design before swinging a hammer or lighting up a saw.

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