Home Safety

Learned Common Sense

Volume 1, Number 1                                            http://www.keyinsp.com                                          February 1, 2010

Slips, Trips and Falls

by Ken Schutter

Several years ago I worked with a man who had specialized as an expert witness for cases involving accidents from falls. He had even created his own doctorate on the subject. So during this collaboration I learned more in-depth about the mechanism involved in slips, trips and falls. It goes something like this:

The human walk is basically a series of falls and recoveries. You lean forward as in falling  and catch yourself by sticking out your leg. And this is repeated until you get across the room or wherever you may be heading. Of all the mechanics involved in this process the one that is most significant is the height above the ground the catching foot travels. It is typically less than a quarter of an inch.  So as you can imagine, any irregularities in the surface of the ground can obstruct this catching foot from coming forward as it should in the walking cycle. The result is either a stumble which is where you were able to make adjustments to continue your walking or a fall to the ground. I suppose if we all marched in our travels, raising our knees and feet high above the ground, tripping may seldom be a problem. But can you imagine a sidewalk full of people marching to wherever they were going. It would look like a scene from “silly walks” which was a Monty Python skit. Hence the importance of having a uniform walking surface because we have a tendency, once we have learned to walk, to look forward towards where we are going and not down at our feet plodding on the pavement. 

And there is good reason for this. Try walking with your head pointed down and you will end up walking into walls, doors, trees and people.

So for the safety of the consumer, walking surface construction parameters have been devised to help in the design of walking and climbing surfaces.  This includes sidewalks, steps, ramps and flooring in general.

Steps or step-ups inside a home are suppose to be built with a maximum height of 7-3/4 inches and a minimum tread depth for setting the foot upon of 10 inches.  This is a standard that has been used for many years. And we have over the years trained ourselves to raise our feet about 8 inches while negotiating steps. It’s when we don’t raise our foot correctly or when the step is of a non-standard height that we can trip. And I have been thankful more than once for having a handrail to grab onto when I have met one of these irregular steps and the step has won.  Of course the other day I didn’t have anything to grab after tripping on a 10 inch step-up into a bedroom and managed to nearly plant my face into the carpet. This was witnessed by the buyer who was following me into the room and they understood my point immediately.

That also brings up the importance of hand rails where an irregular surface is present and a support that can be grabbed is needed to maintain balance or to keep us from falling off the pathway so to speak. More on that in another article.

Getting a home inspection is one way to evaluate the safe conditions of a home.  Get Key Inspected!

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