Sledding incidents may be more common than you may think, according to mayoclinic.org each year roughly 25,000 children end up in the emergency room for sledding injuries. Many of these injuries are very severe, nearly 80% of these injuries were sustained in the head. 

Each year, helmets have become much more common in sledding. This doesn’t come as a surprise as there are many head injuries that have taken place while sledding. Most people have someone they know that has been injured while sledding. Sledding seems like such a common and simple thing, but in reality it is much more dangerous than what it is thought to be.

When kids go sledding in areas filled with trees, such as Caboose Park (located in Lake Villa), many more injuries are likely to occur. Recently a teenage girl that was sledding at Caboose Park, hit a tree and broke several ribs and vertebrae after hitting a tree. This isn’t the first time this has happened either.

This girl in particular was very lucky because if she had hit the tree any harder, she could have been paralyzed from the neck down, or even die. This is because her broken vertebrae were sitting on her spinal cord and caused her unbearable pain.