Injuries, Deaths of Children Rise Alarmingly in Summer

School is out, the summer days are long and sunny, and the hospital emergency rooms are filling up with children. It is July, midway through the accident- and injury-prone period that doctors refer to as “trauma season.”

It can be a fatal season. Statistics show more children die from accidental injuries than from all diseases combined. Federal safety experts say one out of four children under 14 will suffer an accidental injury serious enough to require medical care this year, and chances are it will happen between June and September.

“When school ends and schedules begin to loosen, supervision usually loosens, and the number of injuries soars. During the school season, it’s Friday afternoon at 3, or any day about the time when school gets out that you see the children in the emergency room,” said Nancy Reder, assistant director of the national Safe Kids Campaign. “During the summer, any time is fair game and they come pouring in.”

In Miami, for example, 839 children were taken to hospitals with trauma injuries in 1987, for a monthly average of about 70. But the monthly rate varied from 44 in February to 90 in August.

Dr. Ellen Fine, who compiles Miami trauma statistics, noted that much of the August jump was attributed to children injured in auto accidents.

“It’s vacation time,” Fine said.

Others said the trauma toll jumps when daylight-savings time begins.

“It’s like somebody flips a switch, and the number of kids who come through the emergency room goes up,” said David Lockwood, assistant director of the Kiwanis Pediatric Trauma Institute in Boston.

“From late spring to early fall, we hit the trauma season, when warm weather, long days and more activity result in more childhood injuries and deaths.”

The Safe Kids Campaign, organized by a coalition of government, medical and social agencies, has launched a five-year campaign aimed at reducing the toll.

Last year nearly 8,000 children under 14 were killed in accidents and 50,000 were permanently disabled.

The safety coalition wants parents to change their thinking about childhood injuries, to view them as “predictable and preventable injuries,” not as “accidents” that just happen.

A national Safe Kids survey of parents with children under 14 showed that most are willing to do more to protect their children, but they misunderstand what constitutes the greatest threats.

Asked what concerned them most about their children, 43% answered illegal drugs, and 37% mentioned kidnaping.

Only 21% listed traffic accidents; 1% said drowning, and 1% said fires or burns.

But the biggest killers of children are traffic accidents, drownings and burns, followed by falls, poisoning and choking.