IN the state of Texas in late 2013, a man was rushed to hospital by ambulance after a frantic emergency phone call from his wife.
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He’d fallen off a ladder while climbing to his roof. He was putting up Christmas lights.
I love this anonymous man. I can picture him. From the story told by the Texas doctor who treated him, the patient was a bit of a do-it-yourselfer despite his mature years. Maybe a retired tradie who still wore a tool belt at hip level, with tape measure and hammer always at the ready.
I see him as the proud owner of a shed bristling with shining tools and things hanging on wall mounts, and rows of jars and tins filled with nails, bolts, washers and bits of wire and chain.
We’re not given a name or an age in a report on the man’s fall, but we are given a tantalising quote from the doctor about just how far the man – and let’s call him Bob, because I can see a Bob doing this – was prepared to go to make sure he had the best damn Christmas light extravaganza of any house in his street, nay, suburb or, let’s go for broke, state.
Here’s how we know Bob was prepared to risk all for glory, according to the doctor who’s quoted in articles I’ve filed under the general heading of “Christmas Kills and Maims”.
I love this anonymous man. I can picture him. From the story told by the Texas doctor who treated him, the patient was a bit of a do-it-yourselfer despite his mature years.
Bob “lost his balance as his wife was on the ladder trying to hand him his walker”.
Go Bob. Age and commonsense haven’t wearied him or his trusty enabling wife, who I think of as Gladys.
There’s so much about that little vignette I want to explore – the most obvious question being “Really? Were you really going to clunk around on your roof with a walker while making sure Santa’s reindeers were in a secure and upright position, and in the best vantage point to one-up the neighbour’s Little-Town-of-Bethlehem nativity roof-top pageant?”
And to Gladys: “So, Darl. If Bob had said he wanted to abseil off the roof would you have helped him with that?”, with the tone of voice parents use when they ask if their child would jump off a cliff if a friend told them to, after the kid’s been caught doing something stupid with a group.
But that’s the end of the story of Bob and Gladys, apart from the doctor confirming that Bob survived. We don’t know if their house was Christmas light-less that year, or if they made do with illuminating a few bushes in the front garden, or slummed it with a flashing Santa and reindeers in a loungeroom window display.
What I can tell you, thanks to an American institution called the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), is that Bob wasn’t the only Yank rushed to hospital during Yuletide 2013, and at least one man, 34, died while putting up Christmas lights – in that case after his ladder connected with an electrical wire.
I can also tell you that the CPSC has been a little agitated of late about the number of Americans who don’t survive Christmas holiday decorating – a figure fast approaching the number of American hunters killed each year by friends who mistake them for ducks.
Anyway, the CPSC has issued alerts over the past few years about “Christmas Killers” including ladders, roofs, electrical wires, frayed electrical lights, candles, brandy-infused meats and puddings, Christmas wrapping thrown into fires and “inflamed” Christmas trees that, all on their own, accounted for 10 deaths and $16 million in lost property between 2009 and 2011.
The CPSC produced figures showing about 250 Americans per day, in that same period, were injured because of “holiday decorating” incidents. The figure included the fantastic subset of injured that our Texas doctor likes to call the “DUI” group – people who decorate under the influence.
One of my friends has made an artform out of decorating under the influence, and she doesn’t confine it to the Christmas season. Many’s the time she’s woken to find a wall daubed with different colours from sample paint pots she’s got lined up in her laundry where the rest of us keep detergents and disinfectants.
Many’s the time she regrets how alcohol brings out her most destructive creative surges.
But back to death and danger in the holiday season.
We might sniff at Americans falling off roofs or burning down their houses because of dodgy decorations or “inflamed” Christmas trees, but Aussies have made headlines in the past few years for some pretty stupid festive decoration extremes.
Remember the Christmas fanatic from north Queensland – surprised? – who was worried his amazingly spectacular Christmas light display wasn’t being seen at its absolute best because of other lights in the area. So he disconnected the street light in front of his home to make his display appear brighter, and made national news.
The energy distributor issued shocked warnings about what can happen if you’re hit by 240 volts of electricity – short answer, you die – and a few days later issued an even more shocked warning after evidence the Christmas fanatic wasn’t the only one who’d had the bright idea of knocking out street lights to enhance home decorations.
In front of me now is a photo I took last night of a house not far from here, where the owner has draped lights over his house, front yard, bushes, fence and anything else that can remotely bear illuminating.
Santa and his reindeers are stretched across the roof which also carries row on row of coloured flashing lights, and a dazzling row of lights along the ridgeline.
There’s another illuminated, blow-up Santa in the garden, a couple of giant snowmen, and a nativity scene in the front window with baby Jesus lit up by some miraculous means and smiling sweetly at a couple of sheep.
The owner swears he’s done it for years and uses safety gear, and once his grandkids are older he’ll call it a day. In the meantime the least I can do is walk the dog past his place after dark and say thanks.