Domestic disasters

The film 'Disaster Movie' is about to be launched on DVD. The film's Web site describes it thus:

DISASTER MOVIE follows the comic misadventures of a group of ridiculously attractive twenty-somethings during one fateful night as they try to make their way to safety while every known natural disaster and catastrophic event - asteroids, twisters, earthquakes, the works - hits the city and their path as they try to solve a series of mysteries to end the rampant destruction.

As part of the launch publicity campaign, the film's producers asked the British Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents to gather statistics on common domestic disasters - things leading to injuries bad enough to require at least minimal treatment. According to Metro UK, the list is quite staggering.

Embarrassing incidents occur with alarming regularity – more than 14,000 people ended up in hospital with compromising vegetable-related injuries.

About 500 adventurous types turned up at A&E having knobbled themselves with a sex aid.

And a mysterious 41 had had a close encounter with a goat, show figures from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents.

Then there are the fatal accidents – unfortunate souls have drowned in cat bowls and been killed by a sofa bed while looking for the remote control.

One 23-year-old from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, died after slipping and becoming impaled on a lamp in the garden.

We can also damage other people, as shown by the mother who accidentally glued her daughter's eyes shut by squeezing in nail glue instead of eye drops.

'There is a seasonal aspect to accidents,' said Dr Andrew Dove of Nottingham University Hospital. 'We've had a number of people injured by the Christmas turkey. One patient suffered a fractured skull after a frozen turkey fell on their head.'

One question . . . just how the hell did a frozen turkey get high enough to fall on someone's head??? Was this a Christmas version of caber-tossing, substituting a frozen turkey for a fresh pine log?



Peter