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There's a lot of slicing and dicing going on in kitchens around the country and we're not just talking about food preparation. ACC figures show last year was a record breaker - with the highest number of kitchen injury claims in five years. And it's costing us millions.
Chef and restaurateur Martin Bosley is working with ACC on a safety campaign. And he knows what a minefield a kitchen can be.
Bosley said he had to have reconstructive surgery later in life after suffering severe burns on his torso while emptying fat from a deep fryer while he was still starting out in the industry. He has also cut off the tip of his finger while slicing bacon. He took the fingertip with him in a taxi to A&E and it was re-attached.
ACC says kitchen injuries cost the country $78 million last year.
Injury prevention programme lead James Whitaker told Checkpoint the entity supports around 70,000 people to recover from kitchen-related injuries annually.
He said that number could be reduced if people just took the time to assess the risk before doing something.
The injury toll was double the total number of injuries from some popular sports.
"Anything can be dangerous and if you don't have your smarts about you you can get hurt doing anything but the data tells us there's twice as many injuries in the kitchen than there are to people playing cricket, touch rugby, softball and tennis."
Photo: 123RF
Common forms of injuries included burns and back strains after people slipped over in the kitchen, although people also injured other parts of the body when they fell.
"Most of the injuries are sprains and strains because if you pick up something heavy and twist in a strange way or if you fall over you are going to get a pretty bad strain or sprain."
The millions of dollars paid out covered treatment, rehabilitation, transport and weekly compensation if required. "Whatever it takes to get them back on their feet."
Whitaker said people needed to slow down in the kitchen to stop themselves getting hurt and that way they could still do something they enjoyed, that is preparing food.
"If you get injured it doesn't just affect you, there's heaps of flow-on effects - for family members, mates, workmates, everyone."
He said while he had suffered a few minor cuts in the kitchen, he was relatively unscathed but people he knew had suffered some bad burns and in hindsight had seen how their ordeal could have been prevented.