Cold Air...Take Care
 New England winters conjure up visions of prints by Currier and
Ives...until you realize a half-foot of soggy snow is blocking your
driveway.
In most cases, modern technology comes to the rescue. A few swipes with
a snow blower and you're off to work or play.
But blowers come with their own set of hazards. As an emergency
medicine physician at Rhode Island Hospital, Ludi Jagminas, MD, sees
plenty of snow-related mishaps: "The most common is hand injury--even
completely severed fingers." People think that if the power switch is
off, the blower is off. It isn't. "As you clear snow from a clogged
chute in some blowers, the torque causes the blade to spin at full force,
slicing off fingers in an instant," warns Jagminas. "Always use
a broom handle or long object--not your hand."
If you deal with snow the old-fashioned way, there's the danger of a
sudden heart attack from heavy shoveling. "Two colleagues, Jeffery
Cox, MD, and Stuart Spitalnic, MD, and I conducted a three-year study and
found that the incidence of people showing up in the emergency department
with cardiac arrest was 27 percent higher on days with snowfall,"
says Jagminas. "It's not just the exertion. Cold air can actually
trigger symptoms of angina in people with heart disease."
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