Stuff
People are spending a lot of time in the kitchen over the holidays and this is where many ACC injuries occur.
There were more than 6000 kitchen-related injuries in the Wellington region last year costing $6.5 million to help people recover – both figures were the highest for the past five years.
Nationally, there were 73,730 active ACC claims for kitchen-related injuries last year at a cost of more than $74 million.
So the advice is be careful how you slice and dice.
“Pretty much everything in a kitchen can hurt you or kill you,” said Wairarapa foodie Martin Bosley. “If it’s not hot, it’s sharp. And if it’s not sharp then it’s slippery. There’s a lot of action going on in there and the stress levels are always up. It’s frenetic and a lot of things can go wrong.”
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Bosley has some of the best knife skills in the country. His knack for chopping has been honed by over 35 years of working in commercial kitchens.
But even he has not always been able to avoid becoming one of the roughly 70,000 New Zealanders who suffer a kitchen-based injury each year.
The now Greytown-based chef’s worst injuries came early on in a career in which he went on to excel in just about every foodie role you can imagine – including chef, restaurateur, fishmonger, columnist and author.
“I lost the top of a finger cutting bacon,” he said.
“I thought I was pretty cool with my head up looking around the kitchen – next thing I knew, the top of my finger was lying on the chopping board.”
PIERS FULLER/Stuff
Greytown chef Martin Bosley has some useful tips on how to prevent a kitchen mishap these holidays.
And it’s not just knives that have done serious damage.
“I got some really bad burns when I was an apprentice – I tipped a bucket of hot fat all over my torso and thighs. I had to have many years of plastic surgery to recover.”
While he has been more exposed to danger than most after spending so many years in commercial kitchens, budding master chefs at home are increasingly likely to hurt themselves.
Kitchen injury claims to ACC have risen nearly every year in recent times. There were 67,615 claims in 2017, but the average across the past three years has been well over 70,000.
The most common complaint by far last year was soft tissue injuries (34,000 claims) while lacerations and puncture wounds accounted for just over 19,000.
Burns and fracture/dislocation come a distant third together with both averaging over 4,500 across the last five years.
David White stuff.co.nz
Chef Sam Mannering’s top kitchen tips.
ACC injury prevention programme leader James Whitaker said people with kitchen-related injuries were most likely to get sprains and strains, cuts or burns, and they are mainly hurting their backs, fingers, face and hands.
“Like other injuries, these can be prevented if people slow down and take the time to have a hmmm – to assess risks before they jump in, then go about things safely.”
The age group most likely to come a cropper in the kitchen is 65-plus, who suffered 20,571 injuries while cooking last year – at least four times more than any other age group.
Top five kitchen safety tips
- Keep your knives sharp – a blunt knife is actually more dangerous.
- Put a wet towel under your chopping board to stop it sliding around.
- Always use a ‘claw’ technique when chopping to avoid cutting your fingers.
- Keep your bench space clean and always mop up spills immediately.
- Turn pot/pan handles inwards when leaving something to simmer so you don’t knock it when walking past.
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