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It’s that time of year again where we gather around a bonfire and watch a firework display. November the 5th is a night that a lot of us look forward to and it can be enjoyed by anybody, no matter how old they are. For the historians out there bonfire night takes place throughout Britain to celebrate the capture of Guy Fawkes. It is an event that has been passed from generation to generation since Guy Fawkes plotted to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605.

Although bonfire night is a night of celebration, using fireworks or watching a firework display must be done so in a sensible manner. Those who don’t could end up putting themselves or others at risk of becoming involved in a firework accident. The less harmful fireworks such as sparklers can be extremely dangerous if they aren’t used correct. A sparkler burns twenty times the degrees of boiling hot water, so if it was to come into contact with your skin, imagine the damage that could be done. 

A lot of people choose to go to firework displays rather than carrying them out in their own back yard. In the past there have been traumatic news stories about people who have suffered severe burns as a firework went off when they tried to re-light it because it didn’t work the first time.
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A night out around our city centre is something a lot of us look forward to every week. It’s the end of the week and all we want to do is go out, relax and have a few drinks with friends. Especially around this time of year with events such as Halloween, Bonfire night, Xmas and New Years Eve coming up.

Events such as Halloween are celebrated around the world, and are one of the major diary events in pubs and clubs around the UK. Nights such as these are expected to bring out twice the expected amount of party-goers than on an average night out. With these increased numbers of party-goes out in your city centre it is likely that the queues to get in bars and clubs will be longer than usual.

With the amounts of people in the clubs the unfortunate event of an accident occurring increases, meaning that extra staff are needed on duty to keep accidents and any trouble to a minimum. Additional changes such as having extra door men on and more glass collectors can prevent some of the most drastic accidents. The smallest spillage on a dance floor might cause some body to trip and fall which may result in a serious injury.
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When we start a new job, we should be taken through the necessary healthy and safety training by our new employer. This usually includes fire safety training, general health and safety in the work place, and manual handling training. Depending on your job role, there may be other types of training that you are also shown. Although training can be boring for those taking part, it is essential you do it to help prevent you from being involved in accidents at work.

One of the types of training that all employees should be shown is manual handling training. This is where staff are shown how to lift heavy objects in a way that won’t cause damage to any muscles. No matter what job role you have, manual handling training is important, because at some point in your job role, you may be required to lift a heavy object.

All employers should keep a file on the types of training their staff have been shown, which are legal documents, and should be signed and dated by the employee to show that they fully understood and took part in the training. In the instance of an accident, the employer will then be able to show when their employee last had manual handling training.
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We’ve all had a good laugh at some of the stories in the news…but this is the one that has probably made me laugh the most in a long time. The Royal Mail has sent a letter to a family threatening to discontinue their service to their house due to a recent attack on their Postman by Lana the Tortoiseshell Cat. Her letterbox attacks on the postman prompted the Royal Mail to take further action.

To the family, Lana is a friendly cat but to postman Andrew Goater she is his worst nightmare. Mr Goater was scratched by Lana’s claws when he put his hand through the letterbox. As a result of the attack the Royal Mail has ordered her owners to keep her away from the front door or they face a ban on deliveries to their home.

When commenting on the issue Mr Goater said: “Normally you hear about postmen being attacked by the dog but this cat just came out of nowhere. It was a really vicious scratch.”
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Sport is a huge part of our culture in the UK, whether the sport you choose to take part in is football, basketball, swimming, etc. It is likely that you will have taken part in some kind of sport within your life. Sport is taught to children from when they begin their educated life at primary school, so it’s something they are brought up with.

With us following the lives of sporting heroes such as David Beckham and Jessica Ennis in the news, it’s easy to see that this is a subject of great interest to us all, throughout the UK, and around the world. Football of course is the most popular sport, hundreds of thousands of us follow it everyday. Those that do will see how easily a sporting injury can take place.

Sporting accidents can cause a variety of injuries, the most common are broken bones and torn ligaments due to the impact of a head on collision or a fall, they can also cause whiplash injuries. Some sporting injuries are easily recovered from, some not so easy. If you break your leg in a sporting accident for example it will be months before you fully recover and are able to take part in that part or any fitness routine for a long time.
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For those of us who love to keep up with the latest movies, a trip to our local cinema is not far from ordinary. The cinema makes for a great night out, especially now those cold winter nights are drawing in. A lot of cinemas now offer a membership card where you pay so much a month and can see as many films as you like.

Like any other venue, cinema complexes have a number of health and safety rules that they must follow in the unlikely event that an accident happens at their venue. They will have staff that have undergone the necessary training if anybody does become injured whilst visiting their venue.

Even though an accident occurring in your local cinema may seem extremely unlikely, unfortunately, things like this do happen. There will be staff on site that carry out regular checks to prevent any possible hazards, however spillages can occur at any time and if they are not cleaned up straight away they can become a hazard.
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Like any other leisure centre, water parks and their staff have a responsibility to ensure the safety of their customers. They must follow the accurate procedures in making sure that all aspects of health and safety are taken care of. This means making sure that all pools have the correct temperature and correct level of chlorine in them. 

Along with all of the pool checks they carry out, they must also make sure that there are no possible hazards such as spillages on the floor that people may slip on. They must also have a certain amount of lifeguards on shift to ensure the safety of those in the pool. All lifeguards that work at the water park must have the correct qualifications and experience so that in the unfortunate event of an incident, they know what to do.

For most of us, a day out at a water park is an exciting day that we choose to spend with either friends or family, and creates moments of enjoyment that we will cherish throughout our lives. However there are the rare cases when accidents do occur, and some can cause injuries that we remember for all the wrong reasons.
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Supermarkets are the place that most of us prefer to conduct our weekly shop. Not only do they have everything we need under one roof, which is a huge help especially in winter with the harsher weather conditions, but they also have a variety of offers on a range of different goods every week. Due to the current financial situation with the recession – this is a benefit to every family.

Depending on the time we choose to conduct our weekly food shop, it can actually be extremely stressful. Especially in ‘supermarket rush hour’, which is usually on a Thursday or Friday evening or a Saturday afternoon. With shopping trolleys left, right and centre it can drag out our food shop to take twice as long as we’d hoped.

Supermarkets are extremely busy places and it only takes a small spillage on the floor to cause someone to slip or fall. In fact, with the number of breakable items and stacks of tin cans, it’s surprising that accidents in supermarkets don’t occur more often – despite how common they actually are!  Read More

A whiplash injury is caused when there is a sudden movement of the head / neck, causing it to jerk or jolt violently away from your body. Anything that causes your neck to jolt sideways, backwards or forwards may cause the injury. It often results in the ligaments, tendons and muscles in the neck being overstretched.

The most common cause of a whiplash injury is a car or a motorcycle accident; this is because when they become involved in a collision there is a sudden stopping force, which is the cause of your head moving violently away from your body. Even collisions that occur at a low speed can cause a whiplash injury.
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With the AA’s call for young drivers to have further training before they are allowed on the roads, it makes us think whether they have any faith in young drivers what so ever. The AA said that in their latest poll at least two thirds of teenagers admit that they know someone who has either been killed or seriously injured in a road traffic accident. They are calling for road awareness lessons to be taken in school to make teenagers more aware of the dangers of driving.

For any young driver passing their driving test, especially young male drivers, they will be aware that insurance rates are going through the roof. For some male drivers insuring their first car quotes are between £2000-£2500. For anyone with a teenage son, they know that this is probably twice the amount they paid for their car. This is because statistics show that young male drivers are most likely to be involved in a car accident.
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