Northland is the country's most accident-prone region- with 35 deaths caused by accidents in the home last year - six more than the 29 lives claimed on the region's roads.
Children are at high risk in their own homes, according to shocking figures released by Accident Compensation Corporation this week. In the under-4 age group, four children died from household injuries in Northland in 2008. There were three fatalities in the 15- to 19-year-old group.
Overall, there have been 76 fatalities due to accidents in Northland in the year to June 2009. Eight were children under 14 years old.
One in five Northlanders were injured at home last year. The cost of those 32,341 injuries was nearly $31million. An ACC spokesperson said no study had been carried out on why the region featured at the top of the statistics. Hawke's Bay had the same high regional accident rate as Northland.
Although 35 is a high annual home injury death rate for one of the country's least populated regions, it is less than one death a week. Sobering data released by ACC to launch Safety New Zealand Week 2009 revealed more than 11 New Zealanders are fatally injured at home each week.
"More than 570 New Zealanders die as a result of injuries in the home every year. That's more than the number killed on our roads and nearly five times the number killed at work," general manager of injury prevention Katie Sadleir said.
In 2008, New Zealanders spent more than $640 million on ACC to treat, rehabilitate and support around 650,000 people injured in their homes - the equivalent of one in seven Kiwis, or one person every 48 seconds.
Auckland had the highest rate - one in three people - of any metropolitan area. Almost half of all injuries lodged with ACC nationwide last year happened at home. This week's safety and awareness campaign will focus on how to avoid, rather than step into, the dangers of the home.
While the kitchen proved the most dangerous room inside the house, almost as many accidents happened outside.
Nationwide, last year 35 children died; 10 under 4-years-old suffered burns; 118 under-five-year-olds, mostly boys, lost a finger, toe or limb; 180 children ran through glass or fell out of windows.
More than 85 people were injured every week by lawnmowers. More than 500 were hurt using tools.
More than 4000 people injured themselves falling off ladders at home. Although safety in the home is the campaign's theme this year, workplace safety is a permanent high priority for ACC and various industries.
At the top of the ladder, literally, is the construction industry. Last year residential construction, trade groups and civil construction made up the highest number of workplace claims - 2100 serious injury claims, an average cost of about $11,000 per claim, at an overall cost of more than $24 million.
Falls are the most common cause of injury.
* Small fall shatters a fit man's full life
Rhett Brown had been an athlete, karate enthusiast, policeman, house renovator, antiques restorer and hammer hand on house building sites.
"Then I went to work one day and never came home," the Whangarei man tells people he talks to in seminars about safety.
"What happened to me could happen to you guys, anywhere, any time," he told construction workers at Okara Park, in Whangarei at a seminar organised during Safety Week by Accident Compensation Corporation's injury prevention unit, Northland Regional Council and Department of Labour.
The audience's full attention was on the gaunt, tetraplegic man in the wheelchair as he hammered home his story - not out of self-pity, he said, but as a warning.
In 2004, working on a construction site, Mr Brown tumbled from two unsecured, slightly uneven planks resting on deck framing.
On the scale of things, it wasn't a big fall - little more than 2 metres.
On the scale of things, it was a huge fall, however - resulting in the loss of body movement from his shoulders down.
"I landed directly on top of my head. I remember seeing my feet pointing up at the clear, blue sky.
"Dust and screws and nails and tools from my apron landed all around me.
"And I heard the crunch as my neck broke."
As he had crashed, so too did his marriage of over 30 years and a fit man's dreams of an active future.
Mr Brown spent two weeks in intensive care at Auckland Hospital, six months in the Otara spinal unit and 2 years in a residential home for the elderly. He now lives in his own purpose-built house in Morningside.
Extensive surgery on the tendons of one hand gave him back enough movement to feed himself, clean his teeth, control his wheelchair, brush his hair and shave. Everything else - all toileting, showering, dressing and other care - is done for him by around-the-clock caregivers.
No one should compromise on safety when working around the home, no matter how easy they thought the job, Mr Brown told the workers on Tuesday. Lindy Laird
Northland has worst casualty rate in NZ
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