Fan Injury: Prevent children from sleeping on upper bunk beds – Expert

Prof. Adekunle Olu, a Neurosurgeon with the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH),  has advised parents and caregivers to prevent children from sleeping on upper bunk beds in rooms with ceiling fans.

Olu, who gave the advice on while addressing   newsmen in Ilorin on Thursday.

He warned parents to prevent common house accidents among children including fan blade injury.

Olu explained that the ceiling fan, though a basic potential  source of hazard in the home, could cause head injury which may be fatal in children.

“Children should not be allowed to play or sleep on the upper bunk of a bed. Air conditioners and standing fan located away from the bed can be used as alternatives to ceiling fans,” he said.

He observed that ceiling fans were one of the commonest simplest and most basic electric appliances in most homes.

The neurosurgeon said they are must-have home appliances that are particularly useful during the extreme hot dry or summer seasons.

“They are commonly used as alternatives to air-conditioners because they are relatively cheap and easy to maintain.

“However they are also a veritable source of danger and injury, such as hand injury and head injury among children,” he said.

He explained that even though the blades of a ceiling fan were relatively blunt, they became an effective cutting edge as the fan rotates.

The surgeon warns that head injury caused by fan blades in children, could be very dramatic with sometimes devastating immediate and long term sequela including death.

He described sequela as a condition which is the consequence of a previous disease or injury.

Olu said fan blade head injury could occur in children when lifted or thrown up by adults, jumping in the upper bunk bed, climbing up unto a table or ladder or carrying a child on one’s shoulders.

“Various types of injuries can be sustained including scalp lacerations, skull fractures which can be linear, depressed, comminuted or even elevated,” he said.

The expert said clinical symptom may include loss of consciousness, vomiting, hemorrhage from scalp lacerations which might lead to shock.

Olu said that Cranial Computed Topographic scans were expensive and not readily available in most hospitals in Nigeria.

He added that ionising irradiation was not without its deleterious effect on the developing brain of the child.

The expert advised that ceiling fan though a basic household electric appliance, was a potentially source of hazard in the home. (NAN)