Keeping Your Child Safe on National Injury Prevention Day 2025

BIRMINGHAM (Nov. 18, 2025) — Safety experts nationwide will wear green and discuss the importance of keeping children safe on Tuesday, November 18.  Tuesday is National Injury Prevention Day, a day to bring awareness to the number one cause of injuries and disabilities to children aged 1 to 44.
 

“I think that most people don’t realize those are injuries that are preventable,” said Dr. Elizabeth Hendrickson, a pediatric emergency medicine fellow at Children’s of Alabama. “This is a day to highlight what those specific injuries are that we see every day in the hospital and what are simple things that parents and caregivers can do to prevent them.”
Hendrickson says this year, safety experts want to highlight three areas where they are seeing several children hurt: Firearm injuries, unintentional ingestions, and ATV Accidents.

Firearm Safety:
Hendrickson says that since 2020, firearms have been the leading cause of death for children over the age of one.
“That’s more than illnesses like cancer, that’s more than accidents like car accidents,” said Hendrickson. “A lot of the firearm injury and death happens in the home.”
Hendrickson says if a family chooses to have a gun in the house, it needs to be safely stored, meaning it is locked up, out of sight, and out of the reach of a child. It also needs to be unloaded, and the ammunition should be stored separately.  This is especially important at this time of year, when families are traveling or having other family members visit for the holidays.
“Children don’t always realize the difference between a firearm and a Nerf gun or a laser tag gun, so it is really up to the parents to do some pre-planning in those situations,” said Hendrickson.
 

To learn more about secure firearm storage, visit 
Partners In KidsHealth: Secure Firearm Storage
Partners In KidsHealth: Secure Firearm Storage Part 2

Unintentional Ingestion: 
Hendrickson says a child comes to an emergency department every 10 minutes in the United States for an ingestion of some sort. This includes children getting into medications, as well as household items such as cleaning supplies or fertilizers. Hendrickson reminds parents that children can get confused about what’s food or what’s poisonous.
“We say once a child starts crawling, once you have kiddos who are moving around on their own, we encourage parents to actually crawl on their hands and knees to see what is accessible to their child,” said Hendrickson.
Items such as cleaning supplies should be stored on high shelves and locked away. Families are also encouraged to get medication lockboxes.
“We ask families to put their medication in that and out of the reach of children,” said Hendrickson. “It is also helpful to keep storing medication in their original packaging, so not putting things in pill bags or leaving medicine lying around purses or in diaper bags.”
Hendrickson says it is also vital to remind grandparents and other family members of this in case a child becomes curious and starts looking through a family member’s belongings.
 

ATV Accidents:
Hendrickson says over the holidays, we see a very high number of all-terrain vehicle (ATVs) accidents in our region. 
“These are motorized vehicles, just like a car, so you have to follow the safety regulations for those vehicles,” said Hendrickson. “Children should always be wearing a helmet when they are riding; they should never be driving if they are under the age of 16, and you really need to follow the occupancy guidelines.”
Hendrickson says a lot of children get hurt because tons of children are piled into one vehicle, and it throws off the stability, and that’s when it rolls over.
“Those injuries tend to be traumatic brain injuries, and those are often not survivable,” said Hendrickson. 
Parents should also supervise their children to make sure they are following safety guidelines.
 

Children and the Holidays
Hendrickson says that as an emergency medicine physician, the most tragic injuries pediatricians typically see are often over the holidays. 
“So many things are preventable with just a simple conversation ahead of time, so it is worth spending a couple of minutes as you prepare for the holidays to talk to family members and make a plan, and then you can go into the holidays ready to celebrate instead of dealing with a tragedy that could be prevented,” said Hendrickson.

For more information on injury prevention and to download a child prevention handbook, visit Injury Prevention | Children's of Alabama.