Sure it's one thing to be hurt on sharp objects, work tools or using sports equipment, but last year, Tucsonans also managed to hurt themselves on such things as clothes hangers, drinking fountains, shoes, non-electric toothbrushes - even, apparently, causing new injuries when trying to use first-aid equipment.

Who keeps track of these things?

The emergency room at University Medical Center (UMC) does. For the last 25 years, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has contracted with the University of Arizona to collect data about the items involved in peoples' injuries. The commission wants to protect the public from unreasonable risks of serious injury or death that might come from consumer products. In order to do that it maintains a national database that tracks injuries associated with about 15,000 products.

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The tallies from Tucson in 2004 contributed data for more than 450 categories in the database.

The emergency room at UMC tracks each person's injuries to identify any products that might be involved. The information is coded and forwarded to the commission for inclusion in the National Injury Information Clearinghouse.

UMC's 2004 report reveals Tucsonans sustained most of their injuries in accidents involving sports equipment, sharp objects, work tools and furniture. Those are the usual items.

Then there are the unusual cases.

How does one get injured with a non-electric toothbrush? Several people have found the answer to that question by running around the house with it in their mouths.

The injuries from shoes often come from women falling off their high heels.

People even need to be careful applying first aid. One of the more common injuries comes from inserting cotton swabs into an ear.

The highest incidence of sports injuries in 2004 involved bicycles. Dan Judkins, UMC's new injury prevention and outreach educator said that Tucson's year-round sports activities contribute to the high number. Outside of sports and work, however, injuries sustained during falls are very common. "People fall in bathtubs, they fall off beds and trampolines," says Berren. "At work, common accidents involve welding equipment, knives at restaurants, and injuries people receive when they don't wear safety goggles."

Judkins, who is also a nurse and former trauma coordinator for UMC, said that what is important about the tracking project is that information about non-fatal injuries across the nation is limited. "There is a lot of information about injuries that lead to death, but lots of people are severely or moderately hurt. Other than the Commission's tracking project, there is no national database compiling this data. It's our only shot at knowing the scope of injuries across the country," he said.

Dr. Harvey Meislin, chief of the department of emergency medicine at UMC, said that ninety-six entities in the country track injuries for the commission using the computer-based National Electronic Injury Surveillance System to gather data. "We not only send the information to the Commission, but we have provided information to Congress and other federal government agencies. If they need us to do a specific study on a particular type of injury, we can do that," he said.

The statistics are used locally, too. The Tucson City Council has used information for educational purposes when they are considering safety ordinances.

Two other hospitals in Arizona track injury information: Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center in Phoenix and Huhukam Memorial Hospital in Sacaton on the Gila River Indian Reservation.

Meislin says the entities gathering the statistics reflect the diverse makeup of the country. Participants include large hospitals, small hospitals, rural, urban, and university hospitals.

Meislin credits Esther Berren, who has worked with Meislin for 20 years, with making the tracking project at UMC an outstanding endeavor. Berren, senior research specialist for the project, reviews five to six thousand emergency room charts each month to complete her coding and tracking. Berren's knowledge and experience are also put to work when she travels around the country to teach staff at other hospitals how to gather and code the information from emergency room reports.

The climate is often an indirect factor in the number of injuries associated with a particular product. Judkins noted that Tucson has over 40,000 swimming pools and more drownings per capita than many other states, but pools are more common in Tucson than in other areas with a northern climate. Meislin says controlling access to pools is very important.

"Pools are typically walled in on three sides behind the house, but no one thinks about the access from the house to the pool n what we call the ‘fourth wall,'' he says. "And it is not only children who experience pool injuries, but older people who are swimming by themselves who have trouble, with no one there to help them."

Meislin, Berren and Judkins agree that gathering these statistics has paid off. Over the past 30 years, the commission's work has resulted in a 30 percent decline in the injuries and deaths associated with consumer products.

After years of tracking the source of Tucsonans' injuries, what injury prevention advice does the group have?

"Beware of the combination of guns and alcohol; use protective equipment whenever it is available; don't mix cleaning products, and wear your seatbelt."

Meislin said injuries can be analogous to infectious disease: "You can almost always predict the number of injuries that will occur each year, just as you can predict how many people will get sick with an infectious disease, but the vaccine for accidents is prevention," he said. "The statistics we're gathering are after the fact. The best cure for injury is for it not to happen at all."

Martha Lundin may be contacted at mlundin@azbiz.com or (520) 295-4259.