ADAMCZYK: The grill and the meat. The firefighters and the emergency room.

Jun 29, 2023

Ed Adamczyk

Someone, it may have been Hemingway but I cannot nail it down, once wrote that there are three things every man thinks he can do better than any other man: drive a car, build a fire and make love. To that I could add one more thing about which to brag: outdoor grilling. With the "unofficial start of summer" in the rear view mirror we will hear plenty about how to grill, what to grill, what tools and machines and fuel to use while grilling, how to behave like an expert and generally be a hero of the backyard. Let's roast some cows.

You’d think the most hazardous thing about summer would involve either excessive exposure to sunshine, or maybe motorboats, but a recent survey exposes the hazards of life at the grill.

"Among the 70 percent of consumers who own or plan to use a vacation rental grill this summer, nearly 15 percent say they’ve been injured grilling."

That's straight out of a survey published in May by Value Penguin, the analytics and research arm of the online mortgage search company Lending Tree. The injuries are mostly burns, mostly involving men, largely involving the 27-to-42-year-old cohort known as millennials, and grilling under the influence, or buzzed barbecuing, is a major factor. Who acknowledges grilling while drinking and getting injured? Not baby boomers, the 59-to-77 group which includes me; only 12% admit to getting hammered, then grilling.

While any injury to my fellow man is a tragedy, I find this report hilarious, largely because I drink sparingly and grill never. When I am invited to a summer event involving outdoor cooking I am the one making witty conversation, hauling ice chests full of canned beer and cold water and generally avoiding the grill. Let someone who thinks he knows what he's doing do it, and incidentally, the survey indicates that 43% of men but only 18% of women admit to operating a grill while aided by beer or liquor.

An aside: at such a party a few years ago, I watched the grill master skillfully and soberly grilling up hamburger patties, which he then tossed into an aluminum basket, and partiers were welcome to take the patties, add them to buns and make a meal. One young man did so, then watched me take two to essentially build myself a double cheeseburger. He looked at his single-stack burger, then at mine, and mumbled, "Ah, rookie mistake."

The survey also notes that the majority of grill jockeys start the party without checking if the grill is in proper working order and 42% do not clean it after use, the source of 29% of "home grill structure fires," an honorific by the National Fire Protection Association meaning a fire burning down a building via a dirty grill. Forty-four percent of prospective grill users this year are unaware if they are insured against the kind of calamity described herein.

All of this comes, to me, with a patina of smugness and a willingness to laugh at these fools, because, like motor boaters or tightrope walkers, accidents occur and they are not happening to me. Of course, I have been known to occasionally use a step ladder, so injuries of that ilk are more prominent in my mind.

The older one is, the more likely he or she uses a gar-powered grill, instead of charcoal or wood or other flammable substance, the survey says. Gas grills are responsible for 84% of fires. Not injuries — ouch, I burned myself again — but genuine fires. The survey notes that other hazards include food poisoning, cuts, choking and nausea often caused by carbon monoxide.

And you thought you were just going to grill a couple of steaks in the backyard. You never imagined that this fun-in-the-summer-sun tradition could be so hazardous.

Some of the injuries reported border on stupidity. Twenty-one percent of emergency room visits related to outdoor grilling involve carnivores younger than age 10, who presumably weren't enjoying beer or liquor at the time.

Be assured I hope to remain welcome at backyard parties this summer, but I am pleased to see quantifiable data on some of the hazards. Like a lot of things, including any sport requiring a helmet, if I am not a practitioner I can relate to any accidents or carnage with the reassuring thought that it's not me, or that I could have told them, so watch yourselves out there. Let me know if you need more lighter fluid.

Contact Ed Adamczyk at [email protected].

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