More to Skiing and snowboarding, snowmobiling, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, ice fishing, & pond skating. Pick your winter sport, but be conscious of safety regulations and good old common sense by following these safety tips for outdoor winter sports:
Cell phone, walkie-talkies & mini-flares: Always have at least one of these on you while roaming on a winter sports adventure. Even though phone coverage can be inconsistent in ski areas it is important to carry one anyway! Walkie-talkies are shorter ranged but most ski resorts have them for rent so make sure to get a set to stay in touch. Flares are a good signaling device just in case you get into trouble in a snow bank or hurt and in an out of heavy traffic areas.

Solar glare: Sunlight glaring off the white of snow can be blinding causing you to lose balance or bump into someone causing an accident. Solar glare can also cause sunburn to the whites of your eyes, which can be painful. So either wear sunglasses with protective lenses or non-fogging goggles made with solar glare lenses. Nothing worse than having goggles fog up while skiing. Want to see where you are going guys!
Weatherproof watch: You need to be able to keep track of time while you are out there having fun.
Water, sunscreen & Chap Stick: Hook a water bottle on to your ski jacket or zip it in one of your pockets. Keep hydrate. Think you are out in the snow you don’t need water? Think again! Dry and cracked lips can shorten your fun time and be painful for days so make sure to remember the sunscreen and Chap Stick.
Safety clothes & guards:  Helmets are an absolute must have; make sure it is properly secured on your head, not around your neck! Also make sure that you wear a knitted cap directly on your head before placing the helmet on. This will help not only keep the helmet cushioned on your head but also your body heat inside close to your body. Spend the time to get properly fitted in fishing gear, snow pants, toe warming socks (I love those things. I wear them around the house). Dress in layers and find snug fitting gloves with Velcro wrist tightness. Make sure a professional properly fits you with comfortable ski boots, and snowshoes. No, your big brother, weekend Dads or Moms who may know how to fit you are not the professionals I am suggesting. But this is just a suggestion!
There are all kinds of new technology out there for thin insulated materials to make your body movements enjoyable so that you not constricted with bulky clothing.  Getting frost bitten burns and is no fun to recover from. Let us not see a YouTube video or Twitter posting about you losing a finger or toe to frost bite. OK?
Pond skating: Make sure the weather has been cold enough for at least a weak before attempting to skate on a pond. Please call the local authorities to ask permission to skate on a lake or pond. Make sure you get your skates properly sharpened before skating on raw lake or pond ice. Wear knee and elbow guards.
Having fun means balancing common sense safety practice with your desire to have the thrill and excitement of doing the sport. Think Safety, because life has no reset button!

Yovette Mumford, Executive Director of the non-profit www.safetyissues.com, mother of three, attorney, inventor of safety medical products at www.safetymedicals.com, writer, lives in New England.

Hi,

You may have provided your baby with a safe crib and safe furniture, when you leave the baby alone in the room how can you assure yourself he or she will be completely safe? You cannot stay with your baby in the nursery all the time, but you need to be assured that your baby is sleeping soundly and not in distress. You can have a peace of mind by investing in a baby monitor, such as the Safety 1st Sight N Sound Assurance Monitor System, and keep it on at all times the baby is left alone.

The Safety 1st Sight N Sound Assurance Monitor System is a video baby monitor with black and white screen, allowing you to see and hear your baby. This is a device that’s so easy to install and use. It consists of a video camera that can be adjusted into an angle that lets you get the best view of your baby.You will find this video baby monitor particularly suitable if you have a big house because you will be able to receive its frequency within a maximum range of 300 feet, while still providing you the video clarity you want. With Safety 1st Sight N Sound Assurance Monitor System, you have an option whether to operate the device using household electricity, or battery power.

Baby monitors help reassure you about your baby’s safety. They are especially comforting in times when you sleep soundly and have the baby sleeping in another room. If you have a large house and want to be alerted when the baby wakes, the Safety 1st Sight N Sound Assurance Monitor System can be programmed to set off an alarm.

Remember, however, that transmissions from baby monitors can be picked up on cell phones and on your neighbors’ baby monitor receivers. Make sure to turn off your transmitter while inside the nursery. You would not want to be embarrassed by having your neighbors hear your private conversations. Life has no reset button, think safety!

Safe living,
Yovette Mumfrod

Hi,

Taking images to help us remember the most pleasant events is something each of us has done at one time or another. At an earlier time, people would sing about having photographs and memories of significant events in our lives. With the advent of the digital video camera, we now talk about images and memories.

Camera - In-Car Camera - Road Safety Guard - Record Scenery while Traveling

When we go out for some skiing this winter, or just to take in the outdoors or explore the places we visit, you may want to have an in-car camera to shoot the scenery while you’re busy minding the wheel. Everything that’s out there on the road may be safely captured in real-time video with the in-car camera that you can install in minutes (without any special tools). All the images you want will be filed in a secure memory card that can store up to 2Gb of images (equivalent to about 5 hours of recording). A 1Gb memory card can hold 2.5 hours of recording time. You won’t have to worry about power, as it can use 12V DC, by plugging into your car cigarette lighter, or 3 size AAA batteries.

But it is not only scenery and majestic mountains that can be stored here. Winter is a very cruel season for driving, and the road conditions may be quite treacherous. It is good to have a record of driving conditions that you can provide to law enforcement authorities and insurance companies in the event that something untoward happens ─ accidents just come without notice. You can get very disoriented after an accident, and you don’t always remember things before a crash.

The in-car camera, in this case, becomes useful not only for recollection but also for protection. Not physical protection during a crash, but protection of the knowledge of the exact road conditions, the weather, and the traffic that prevailed at the time of a crash. It can also be protection of your financial health afterwards, since you can use the images taken by the in-car camera as evidence in case it’s needed.

The in-car camera can give you some peace of mind and a sense of security that everything on the road as you drive is properly recorded. At the very least, it ensures your nice memories are safe. And when it matters, it ensures you have a back-up to your memory. Life has no reset button, think safety.

Safe living,
Yovette Mumford

Hi,

Every one of us has some important documents to protect. It could be passports and birth certificates, some cash or precious photos. It could be property deeds, business ownership documents, insurance policies. It could even be documents covering your estate plan: a will, a living trust perhaps, durable power of attorney for health care and one for finances, or even written instructions for your funeral or donations of body parts. You obviously want to keep all these documents in a safe place. Naturally, you look for a secure place for storage ─ a safe in your house or office, or even a drawer in your file cabinet or desk. Some people use a safe deposit box in a bank, but that can sometimes pose problems.

Fire Resistant Document Storage Bag

An inexpensive but very effective way to protect such documents from fire is to put them inside a fire resistant document storage bag. This fire resistant document storage bag is quite big ─ at 9 in x 14 in, it can hold legal size documents. With its fiberglass construction, it is built to withstand high temperatures of 1000oF. In terms of fire resistance, it gives as much protection as a fire safe at a much lesser cost.

If you have only one safe in the house, and it is a burglary-resistant safe where you store your valuables, you should realize that such safes cannot do much to protect valuable documents or records against fire. If a fire were to occur, any documents inside a burglary-resistant safe would be reduced to ashes.

You can stuff your important documents in the fire resistant document storage bag and store them in the burglary-resistant safe. In that manner, the documents are protected both against burglary and against fire. By the way, do not forget to let the person who will wind up your affairs know what you have arranged and how to obtain the documents. Life has no reset button, think safety.

Safe living,
Yovette Mumford

Hi,
Fire can happen in any season of the year. There are a number of things that can terrify us, but very few situations can surpass the terror of being unable to protect a child when emergencies like fire occur.

Child Safety Blanket

Fire is one emergency that we should always prepare for. Just as we have fire drills and prepare for fire emergencies at work, we should conduct similar drills at home. We need to educate our children about techniques for protecting themselves during these emergencies. We can make sure that they use fire retardant clothes when they go to bed. And, we should have a Child Safety Blanket tucked under each bed, one for each child.

Child safety blankets are fire blankets that protect your child by keeping the heat from getting to your child’s skin. In a fire, children can quickly wrap the 45” x 38” child safety blanket around themselves. It is very light, weighing only 7 ounces, so they should have no problem holding onto it. The blanket can protect them from contact burns and against the intense heat and flames of a fire until they can get safely outside the house.

If you are lucky enough to spot a fire when it is just starting, you can actually use the child safety blanket to put out the fire — the high-tech fibers are that resistant to flames. They had to be, because the fabric had to meet the safety criteria for firemen’s gear of the national fire protection association. Fire departments all over the country and the Emergency Management Services already use the same blankets in their operations.

The child safety blanket is not only good for blocking flames and heat from fires. It also helps to keep the body heat in and around your child. This makes the child safety blanket equally useful in other situations, like camping or boating, when you need to make sure they retain body heat and be protected from the cold. And if a fire should occur at the camp, your child can use the safety blanket to extinguish it.

By the way, in your fire drills at home, make sure the children learn not only to wrap the child safety blanket around themselves but also to have a moist towel or cloth covering their noses and mouths. This ensures dangerous fumes will not get into their lungs. Life has no reset button, think safety.

Safe living,
Yovette Mumford