Jell-O Salad and Deep-Fried Turkeys: Surviving Thanksgiving Disasters

Thanksgiving is a time for family, food, and... absolute chaos? Would you agree? In this episode of Life & Safety, we’re tackling some wacky holiday mishaps, so *hopefully* you can enjoy your turkey day drama-free.

From carving knife calamities to the risks of deep-frying a turkey (seriously though, dry it off first!), we're talking all things holiday safety. We even have a few infamous family recipes for you... Jell-O salad with red hots, anyone? And with all the potluck dishes to be shared, keep an eye out for those sneaky allergens. You never know what Aunt Betty added to the pea salad this year.

But the catastrophes aren't always in the kitchen. There's family-football related injuries, awkward family dinners, and mental health issues that can all crop up this time of year. So grab a slice of (safe-for-you) pie and tune in for some Thanksgiving stories and holiday survival tips that you didn’t even know you needed.

From our family to yours... We hope you have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Life Safety Associates specializes in emergency response training for corporate ERT Teams. We help businesses create competent and confident first responders who are ready to handle unexpected emergencies. For more information you find us @lifesafetyassoc or email@lifesafety.com.

Chapters

• 0:00 Thanksgiving Holiday Safety Podcast Series
• 5:28 Holiday Cooking Safety Tips
• 12:26 Thanksgiving Safety Tips and Recipes

Transcript

Jimmy: 0:24

What's happening. It's your boy, jimmy. Of course, I've got Megs here with me for another Life and Safety podcast. Today we're going to continue our holiday safety podcast series. I guess we did the Halloween one.

Jimmy: 0:45

People seem to like it, so we're going to do a Thanksgiving one, and Thanksgiving is a lot of fun for some folks. You know I, growing up in a football house, you know a lot of the. The folks in my house really enjoy football, so we still always go play football in the morning. Um, we'll be on it in some time because, well, we're a lot older and a lot more fragile, so to speak. Um, but yeah, so thanksgiving could definitely be a uh, time of, you know, joy and a time of sorrow and lots of things in the holidays, right? So just remember, reach out to your loved ones I'm going to start there and your friends and just you know, in the military they always call it the buddy check. Always check on your buddies and your family.

Jimmy: 1:43

Now, with that being said, let's talk about some common injuries. So, megan, what do you think would be some common injuries? And I'm putting it on the spot right now folks, we didn't prep for this at all, so I'm just throwing Megan under the bus. What's some common injuries? Do you think you would see?

Megan: 2:01

Like.

Jimmy: 2:03

Just on Thanksgiving Day kind of specifically.

Megan: 2:06

One's that I feel like knife injuries when I'm a turkey, or from getting a little too angry at, you know, the family dinner, so probably some you know bruises, broken hands, punches. I don't know. Do people really punch each other out on Thanksgiving? Is that a thing?

Jimmy: 2:29

It is.

Megan: 2:30

I feel like there's going to be some cooking accidents. You know, the famed one is the deep fried turkey. Do not deep fry turkey unless you know how to. Even if you do, why would one deep fry turkey? It's good. I feel like there's. It's good.

Jimmy: 2:47

I've never had one. All right um. I feel like there's, it's good.

Megan: 2:49

I've never had one, all right, so man we'll work on that okay. Um, I feel like, yeah, food related allergies. Like you know, if it's potluck style and people bring things and you know, don't realize that there's an allergy, and they put, you know, peanuts in the green beans you wouldn't think there would be peanuts in green beans and then you eat green beans and then you I'm not recommending that you put peanuts in green beans, I haven't had that.

Jimmy: 3:16

I see your face. I'm giving the skeptical hippo face. I'm like are we really putting green beans in potatoes or beans or whatever it is?

Megan: 3:24

Well no that's what I'm saying, is that you wouldn't expect that, because it's probably not going to be very good.

Jimmy: 3:28

Yeah.

Megan: 3:29

But if you have a good recipe that has peanuts and green beans, send it, send it. I'm excited to. Okay, here's one is my family we do. Um, it's. I don't think it's good, but um, it is what my family does. We do like a jello saladO salad type thing. We make Jell-O and we put red hots in it and then we put like celery and walnuts and other Jell-O salad related apples and then there's like a sauce that has like mayo in it and it just people really like it and I don't.

Jimmy: 4:07

That's fine why?

Megan: 4:08

would you think like like you would die from the cinnamon I would die and why would you think that there would be red hots in jello?

Jimmy: 4:15

right. Well, I was thinking you know same along those lines. You know people are baking pies. You know pumpkin pies, you know, or something like that. Like for me, I'm allergic to cinnamon. That just doesn't fly.

Jimmy: 4:27

So anaphylaxis is a big one. So let's start at the beginning of the day, all right? So I kind of asked because I had some ideas of what I wanted to talk about as far as injuries goes. But you know, one of the things we want to think about is just, you know, starting our day. You know some people cook beforehand, some people cook after, but just start start of that morning, you know, take a time, drink your coffee, get ready for yourself. You know that. Mental wellness, you know, make sure you're mentally just ready to go that day, that's a huge thing. And just in the holidays, just mentally take care of yourself. What you're doing, you know, be mindful, be mindful, know your limits and make sure other people respect your limits and your boundaries Right. And then your cooking. So some common cooking injuries Knives, cutting yourself, like Megan said, so if you cut yourself, pressure Pressure, pressure, pressure pressure.

Megan: 5:29

Okay, and then some more pressure, and then some more pressure and then some more pressure.

Jimmy: 5:32

All right, um, we were at jenny's cousin's house and her cousin's husband is, uh, worked as in kitchens. You know I wouldn't say he's a total chef but, um, he worked in kitchens. I wouldn't say he's a total chef, but he worked in kitchens a lot and did some shorter stuff. You know, he knows his way around the kitchen and he's talking to me and he's cutting some potatoes and he cuts his finger pretty good, you know, pretty good. You know the pad of his finger, like basically his fingertip, was basically cut off and he sticks it underneath cold water. Okay, cold water restricts his, you know, veins, things like that and holds it and then he's like that really hurts and I bet it does. And, mind you, I'm sitting across the breakfast bar to him and going, how am I going to leave that under the water? For he goes, I don't know.

Jimmy: 6:28

Okay, it was just kind of the first thing I did and I said, well, you didn't burn yourself, right? And he goes, no, I cut myself and I said, yeah, it's not going to stop the bleeding, man, hold pressure. And I handed him a paper towel and, you know, hold pressure, you know, and that's going to happen a lot. It happens a lot on Thanksgiving. We're talking, we're socializing Megan's point. You know you've carving the turkey and you got the curvy. You might have had a couple hot toddies, you might have had a little couple glasses of champagne or whatever. You know you're watching the football games and you know got excited or sad, for sure for sure.

Jimmy: 7:08

You know, hold pressure, pressure right. Obviously, if it's really bad you know it's a cut arm or something like that, the muscle then we're going to pack, you know, pack that wound.

Megan: 7:25

And then you know if I have to go to tourniquet.

Jimmy: 7:27

And if you're at that point, the hospital, and at that point you should probably call 911. Just to get checked out. Okay, 9-1-1. Just get checked out, Okay. Now one of the next common things people have issues with is burns. Right, they're pulling hot. You know, pots and pans and things, fried turkeys, fried turkeys, things like that. You know they get burned. So, first degree burn. You know it's just a little bit red, your sunburn, you just touched it. Or maybe some steam burns your hand. Water, cool it off, cool it off. Um, second degree burns do not pop the blister right, cool it off. Cool it off. Cool it off. Water, maybe some burn cream at that point. You know a lot of the new burn creams have like lidocaine in them. Things of that nature Works pretty good. No homemade burn stuff, burn stuff. So no butter, no toothpaste, no Windex, no Vaseline. Vaseline is actually a petroleum product that actually holds heat in. Don't do that, don't do that. Water, water, water. Cool it off. Don't pop the blister and loosely dress it if you have to.

Megan: 9:00

Ideally with non-adherent gauze.

Jimmy: 9:02

Yes, yes, yes, good point. A third degree burn it's charred. Then at that point we're definitely going to have to call 911 and get medical assistance and cool it off. Don't be afraid to cool it off. Don't rip anything away from it, like if there's burned clothes or something like that. Don't try to start peeling things off. Don't hold pressure on it, because things will stick to it.

Megan: 9:27

Don't put ice on it.

Jimmy: 9:28

Don't put ice on it, just cool water, cool water, cool water, cool runnings. Now let's get back to that deep fried turkey thing, because it's always a thing, it's a thing. So, first off, why does the fire, why does it get so big and so out of hand? Because most people take they don't dry their turkey.

Jimmy: 9:58

They defrost it. They don't always dry like the cavity out of it or the skin out of it really well, and they take that water, and water and oil, especially hot oil, don't mix right. It ignites and then it's really big and then the person drops the turkey into the thing and it just gets bigger. So now you have the pressure downforce, the oil is coming out of it, oil vaporizing, things getting crazy. It's just chaos. Now let's talk about the first and first Treat that person for burns, if they have any, cool them off. Cool them off. Cool them off. Shut off the source of the deep fryer, either if it's a propane or gas or anything like that. You want to turn those things off. Do not spray that thing with water. You're just going to make it worse thing with water. You're just gonna make it worse. Um, if you have an abc fire extinguisher, um, go for it. You know that might help, okay, and it might even put the fire out long enough for you to turn the heat off to start cooling it down. Yeah, um, so that's what I would do as far as the fire goes and then, if it gets, catches your deck on fire or the lawn or leaves or anything else around you. Hopefully you're doing this outside, you're not doing this in your garage, hopefully it's on the back deck or back patio or something you know. Fight that fire next, and then that you can use the hose. Do not use the hose to put on the deep fryer. So that's the, that's that. And then the person like I said we said earlier, cool them off, cool them off. Cool them off and you can use the hose for that if you needed to outside. If it's yourself you catch on fire, remember, cover your face, stop, drop and roll, keep rolling until the fire goes out. Okay, so those are some of the big ones.

Jimmy: 12:07

On Thanksgiving we talked about mental health. We've talked about cutting. We talked about burns Two more medical burn sheets, when Megan already kind of spoke to it. The anaphylactic thing, the allergic thing. You know there's lots of things people put in food. Like you know, megan shared. My family makes a pea salad which is basically peas, lettuce and mayonnaise. I think there's some other stuff in it. I think it's absolutely disgusting. I don't need it. Um.

Megan: 12:37

I'm so glad you said that I was judging pretty hard right there.

Jimmy: 12:41

No, you should have been, because I was judging really hard about your jello thing, so all good.

Jimmy: 12:48

Um, I don't, yeah, and you just don't know. You don't know, especially if you're doing potlucks and things like that. Just be conscious. Make sure the person has their EpiPen, remember. Blue to the sky, orange to the thigh If it's the new circular ones with the two blues. So, blue to the sky, red to the thigh, Pull the two blue safeties off and call 911, because you don't know if it. You know if one works, great if humanity is two.

Jimmy: 13:20

And then diabetes, right, people like to overindulge. People like to overindulge. Um, go, go for that walk after you eat. You know, maybe you run around and catch the football or do something active afterwards. Just walk around the block is going to help, okay. And then remember, if somebody is in a diabetic emergency we don't know if they're high or low. I mean, if it's your family member and you know how to check their glucose, you can do that and act accordingly. Low, I mean, if it's your family member and you know how to check their glucose, you can do that and act accordingly. If your family member has taught you how to do that. Only if they've taught you and trained you how to do that. Um, but most of the time, 99% of the time it's going to be a low blood sugar situation and we're going to add, we're going to give sugar, okay, uh, cranberry it, cranberry sauce, bananas, apple juice, apples, apple pie, feeling Right, sugar water, some warm water with some sugar in it, orange juice, apple juice. What do you think? Did I miss anything?

Megan: 14:31

No, honey.

Jimmy: 14:35

Honey, that's a great one, honey, can't believe I missed that one. Good job, mix yeah.

Megan: 14:40

Yeah.

Jimmy: 14:41

So those are some of those common Thanksgiving medical issues, trauma issues you might come across. On that note, have a happy Thanksgiving, have a great holiday season and we'll catch on the next time.