ABSTRACT
Every year there are millions of accidents where injuries are sustained and prop erty is damaged. Many of these events are associated with products. The U. S. Consumer Products Safety Commission maintains a system for sampling hospital emergency rooms to gather statistics on the frequency of accidents requiring emergency room treatment and the product that is associated with the incident. The products vary from the trivial to the extremely expensive and complex. Auto mobiles, firearms, tobacco, and alcohol are not part of this organization’s respon sibility and are not listed. Parts of buildings, tools, garden and sports equipment are involved in these accidents. In some instances the product itself is not to blame, but the operator of the equipment is at fault. In some instances the product or the device is at fault and performed in an unexpected and undesired manner. The National Electronic Injury Survey System (NEISS) collects this information from approximately 100 hospital emergency rooms nationwide and estimates the num ber of accidents per year associated with products. It is estimated that there are more than 1.4 million accidents per year associated with stairs, ramps, and land ings; more than 100,000 with manual home workshop tools, more than 400,000 with drinking glasses and knives, and more than 40,000 with lamps and electrical fixtures and switches. The number of injuries associated with sports and sporting equipment is even larger.
