Here are 6 common ways Thanksgiving could land you in the emergency room

Some of us will wind up giving thanks from the emergency room on Thanksgiving Day because some of us will try to carve a turkey without knowing what we’re doing.

Some of us will pull a back muscle lifting a 25-pound tom turkey out of the oven.

And some of us will make a bad call and play football on the lawn when the only thing our old bones should be tackling is a nap.

Nearly 37,000 Americans wound up in the ER on Thanksgiving Day in 2016, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, which recently released its tips for how to be safe at home for the holidays.

The most dangerous place in the house on Thanksgiving?

No surprise it’s the kitchen, where people are cooking the biggest meal of the year while distracted — put down the phone — and doing several things at once, Rahul Sharma, emergency physician-in-chief at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell, has told ABC News.

So maybe that advice about keeping your medical information handy on a card in your wallet — and there are apps for that now — isn’t such a bad idea, especially if you’re going to be out of town.

Here are six common Thanksgiving injuries and medical emergencies, as reported by government safety officials, ER physicians and urgent care centers across the country.

Carving accidents

Cuts in the kitchen are one of the most common Thanksgiving injuries, ER docs say.

“Because the production of a large holiday meal often calls for the all-hands-on-deck approach, it often brings novices into the kitchen,” physician Brad Uren, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School, wrote in a blog post.

“It should be no surprise, then, that emergency departments often treat cuts and lacerations from people using knives and other sharp implements to help prepare a holiday meal.”

Sometimes the culprit isn’t even the knife — sharp turkey bones can cut hands and fingers, too.

Add alcohol and you’ve got a holiday recipe for disaster.

“Intoxicated guests (and hosts) may cut themselves due to impaired coordination,” cautions DispatchHealth in-home care company. “If you’re on cooking duty, save the wine for later. And sometimes it’s best to refuse help from guests, even if you have your hands full. Too many cooks in the kitchen can lead to distractions and injuries.”

Videos showing how to safely carve a turkey, step-by-step, are all over YouTube.

To be safe, never cut toward yourself, advises the Hand Therapy Center in Santa Barbara, California. “If possible use an electric knife for the carving,” the center recommends.

And, to make sure you make it to the end of the day without a bloody stump, you just have to let some things fall to the floor. “Do not try to catch a falling knife or glass. Let them drop,” the center insists.

Sports injuries

Weekend warrior: 0. Emergency room: 1.

“Pickup football games can be a source of significant injury over the Thanksgiving holiday,” Robert Glatter, an emergency medicine physician in New York and a former sideline physician for the New York Jets, told the “Today” show in 2017.

“We typically see head injuries and concussions along with various orthopedic injuries — from wrist and ankle fractures, to ruptured Achilles tendons, dislocated fingers and knee sprains.”

Three years ago, “turkey bowl” football injuries led to about 1,400 ER visits on Thanksgiving Day, the consumer product safety commission estimated.

Trying to relive “glory days” can be painful, NBC’s medical correspondent and former ER doctor John Torres told “Today.” “Especially for people who might be overweight, who might be out of shape, who haven’t done that much exercise of this type and all of a sudden go on the field and try to relive their youth,” he said.

“Then when you get together with family, everyone wants to one up each other, and what starts out as touch football ends up as tackle football. We’ve all been there.”

It’s never a good idea to wear a raw turkey as a helmet. That is one of the oddest Thanksgiving sports injuries New York ER physician Robert Glatter has ever seen, he told LiveScience.

Though the turkey did prevent the guy from suffering a serious head injury, he said.

Food poisoning

Of course food poisoning will send some folks to the emergency room on Thursday. That’s why hospitals and health officials send out food safety tips and videos right before Thanksgiving.

Calls to the Poison Control Center at the University of Kansas Hospital typically increase during the holidays, officials there say. Poison control educator Stefanie Baines’ list of do’s and don’ts includes washing your hands, cooking the stuffing separately and storing leftovers properly.

And by now everyone knows that washing the turkey before cooking it is a common food safety mistake, right?

‘Granny’ burn

A hospital emergency room in Sugar Land, Texas, tweeted last week: “Did you know that Texas has the most cooking and grease-related injuries on Thanksgiving day than any other state?”

We know now.

“Burns of the hands and arms are another common holiday occurrence,” Uren wrote. “Novices may attempt to navigate oversized broiler pans into ovens, or large portions may boil over their containers.”

Vox news site ran across this description of one unfortunate woman’s hospitalization: “84 year old female with burns to chest & upper arm. Clothing caught on fire when cooking turkey legs on gas stove. Family put fire out. Unknown if Fire Department present.”

“One of the most horrible burns we see is what we call a ‘granny burn,’” James Gallagher, a burn surgeon at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell, told CBS News.

“So many times, older people are wearing loose-fitting clothing, like a house dress, and they might be making something on the stove and the flames are lapping up around the pot and they don’t notice it and the sleeve will catch fire.”

Children get burned, too.

“Around the holidays, people may be using more formal stuff in the dining room like tablecloths or skirts where a little kid can be pulling, and we see hot pots, soup bowls, candles, all these things can come crashing down on a little child and cause scalding burns,” Robert Sheridan, an ER physician and chief of the burn surgery service at Shriner’s Hospital for Children, told CBS.

Tip from Gallagher: “If you’re looking at a burn that’s bigger than the palm of your hand, I would say consider going to the hospital.”

‘Holiday heart’

Awww. Who wouldn’t want a “holiday heart”?

You don’t, because it’s a medical crisis caused by eating and drinking too much.

“Holiday heart syndrome was first named by physicians in 1978 to describe irregular heart rhythms that seemed to occur during the holiday season after periods of heavy alcohol consumption,” Florida cardiologist Kevin Campbell wrote for U.S. News & World Report a few holiday seasons ago.

The condition most often popped up in patients who had no underlying heart disease, Campbell wrote.

Overindulging can cause epinephrine or norepinephrine hormones to surge through your body and trigger an irregular heartbeat, called atrial fibrillation, in a “structurally normal heart,” Glatter told LiveScience.

Someone with “holiday heart” might have chest pains or feel light-headed, tired or short of breath. It can be avoided, Campbell wrote, by that buzzkill-sounding word: moderation.

A few of his tips: Don’t go to a party or holiday event starving, skip anything slathered in a heavy cream sauce and remember to hydrate. “Caffeine and alcohol can result in dehydration, which can lead to further disturbances in your electrolytes,” he said.

Tipsy toddlers

Apparently children “indulge” at the holidays, too.

“We do see toddler intoxication as a problem the day after big holidays,” including Thanksgiving and Christmas, Erica Michiels, an emergency medicine physician in Grand Rapids, Michigan, told ABC News.

The evening of Thanksgiving, or the morning after, parents bring their lethargic little ones to the ER, she said. They have no clue what’s going on because “toddler intoxication looks very different than adult intoxication,” Michiels said.

These children might just look tired and be unsteady on their feet, like tired kids can be, but sometimes it becomes more serious with seizures brought on by low blood sugar, she said.

“Toddlers are just so naturally inquisitive that they will drink the little leftovers that have been left by the adults,” she said. “It doesn’t take much for a toddler weighing 20 or 30 pounds to become intoxicated.”