I used to think hard-to-open packaging was merely a nuisance. Turns out it’s dangerous, too. No joke.
[E]mergency room doctors say they’re slammed the week after Christmas with . . . injuries [from packaging] and see them regularly all year. Dr. Christian Arbelaez, a Boston-area ER physician, sees about a case a week, some as serious as tendon and nerve damage that require orthopedic surgeons to repair.
“I would definitely like to tell (manufacturers) that serious hand injuries are occurring because of this packaging,” said Arbelaez, a member of the Trauma Care and Injury Control National Committee of American College of Emergency Physicians.
Yikes. I guess it pays to take it slow when opening packaging–especially that really stiff plastic that’s been soldered at the edges — what the article I’ve linked to calls “PVC clamshell.”
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I wrote about that months ago. The wounds are just healed.
Glad you missed the nerves & tendons!!!
It’s another of the things that I make note of to tell my son and others who weren’t around in bygone years…that this packaging insanity is a new thing. “When I was a kid…” packaging wasn’t overdone! I understand that packaging for things we are going to injest changed when there were some tampering scares, but why is everything else bundled up so securely that people are putting hands at risk opening things?? Is it just because we now have the technology to do the PVC clamshells?
No, it’s because people steal things at retail. PVC clamshells make it too hard for someone to open the package in the store and remove the contents . . .
I guess then that the added cost of packaging is less than the money lost through theft… That doesn’t count the medical costs.
No, but of course the medical costs aren’t born by the manufacturer or retailer . . . unless of course someone cuts themselves while trying to steal something in which case they probably have grounds for a liability lawsuit against both :-D