6 Simple Safety Tips For Your Thanksgiving Holiday

 In The Buzz
With Thanksgiving upon us, many local newspapers across the country are running a mix of ‘thank you’ editorials, recipes, and safety tips. While reading many of these safety tips , we’ve come to realize that it’s incredibly easy to forget that this wonderful time of the year is also riddled with risks. While for many Thanksgiving will be an incredible, relaxing time of the year, for others, the mix of risk factors will lead to an accident at some point during the holiday. This increase in potential accidents during our break from work happens for a number of reasons, including the following:
  • Thanksgiving has become the most-traveled holiday of the year; unfortunately, the additional traffic and number of impatient drivers on the road (as well as the increase in the number of drunk drivers on the road) inevitably leads to more accidents than usual during this time of the year.
  • The greatest number of home cooking fires and accidents occur on Thanksgiving.
Our team at SpillFix wants you to enjoy the holiday just as much as we will and we would like you to avoid accidents that can ruin your time with friends and family. With that in mind, we have put together a list of simple safety tips, which will let you enjoy your holiday in a safe, relaxing manner:
  1. If you’re traveling, give yourself plenty of time to get to your destination – and drive defensively, not aggressively. Your goal is to travel safely, not quickly!
  2. If you’re frying rather than roasting your turkey, be sure that you place the fryer outdoors and far away from your home or other structures, including garages, elevated patios, and so forth. Remember: a fryer is a fire hazard.
  3. Be sure that you’re setting up your fryer both effectively and safely. Before putting in several gallons of oil into the fryer test out how much oil you’ll actually need with water. It’s simple: place the turkey inside and then fill it with water until the bird is submerged. Then just remove the turkey and draw on a water line on the fryer; now you know exactly how much oil you’ll need to fry your dinner – Eureka!
  4. Be sure that your turkey is completely thawed, especially if you’re using a fryer. If you don’t, the collecting grease and liquid can either burn you or create a messy, oily spill, neither of which will be pleasant to deal with.
  5. Be sure that as you fry or cook your Thanksgiving feast, you leave nothing unattended. While fryers are usually seen as as a hazard, ovens and stoves can also be riskyif food is left in them too long or flammable items are left sitting near them. Monitor any cooking source at all times to ensure that these fire hazards are under control, and that guests do not hurt themselves.
  6. Be sure to keep children and pets away from cooking areas to prevent a variety of accidents, such as spills, injuries from dropping heavy or sharp items, and potentially eating harmful foods.
Simple, easy tips like these will help ensure that you enjoy your holiday safely and soundly this year. If you want more information about how you can accident-proof your home this holiday, we recommend checking out the American Red Cross’ holiday safety tips, as well as this helpful article on safely frying a turkey. Happy Thanksgiving!
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