Health Experts urge kitchen safety on Thanksgiving

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF)- Thanksgiving is next week, and Doctors are making sure folks are cooking wisely in the Kitchen. 

“If I was going to give some advice to patients and their family members regarding working in the kitchen around the holidays, my number one piece of advice would be fire hazard, and that’s frequently mentioned at the holidays, but make sure you’re not leaving your stovetop unsupervised. Make sure that you don’t have flammable materials near the stove top,” said Dr. Elijah Wyatt, Adult and Pediatric Emergency Physician at Erlanger. 

According to the National Fire Protection Association, there are more than 60 injuries reported due to cooking on Thanksgiving. 

Dr. Wyatt believes it’s important to prevent cooking injuries from happening.

“The best kind of medicine, Is the preventative medicine. So if we can prevent an injury, that relieves strain on our patients and provides better health care and also will relieve strain on the system,” said Dr. Wyatt. 

Erlanger says the most common cooking injuries on Thanksgiving come from burns, knife cuts, and fires. 

Dr. Wyatt believes that if you plan on cooking on Thanksgiving, be sure to fry a turkey safely. 

“Whenever a turkey is being placed into the oil and it is too cold, it causes the water to boil rapidly within the turkey. This causes the oil to splatter out, and the fire below it is actually superheated, and so it will flash burn. And as the oil hits the skin, it causes second and sometimes even third degree burns,” Dr. Wyatt stated.  

On Thanksgiving, Health experts encourage cooks to read all the instructions for any new piece of equipment. 

And Dr Wyatt says in the case of an emergency.. 

“We are always available. So the emergency departments are open, 24/7, and if they have an injury like that do not hesitate to call 911 and get further evaluation. That is what we are here for,” Dr. Wyatt concluded.