Nailgun injuries soar among weekend warriors

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Take a nation of do-it-yourselfers, add a ready supply of cheap nailguns and what do you get? About 37,000 nailgun injuries a year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Since 1991, nailgun injuries have risen about 200 percent, the CDC said in its weekly report on death and disease.

"This increase likely corresponds to an increase in availability during the 1990s of inexpensive pneumatic nail guns and air compressors (to power the nail guns) in home hardware stores; however, no sales data are available for confirmation," the CDC reported.

But when the CDC looked at who was getting injured, it became clear that the number of work-related nailgun injuries had stayed stable since 1998. It was consumer-related injuries that had soared.

"During the 5-year period 2001-2005, an average of approximately 37,000 patients with injuries related to nail-gun use were treated annually in emergency departments, with 40 percent of injuries occurring among consumers," the report read.

Emergency departments treated three times as many consumers with nail-gun injuries in 2005 as they did in 1991, the report noted.

The CDC said more needs to be done to make consumers aware of the dangers.