Play Safe Or I Will Kill You

I don't know if any of you ever got your first aid certification from St. John's Ambulance but in the old days they would show you the most horrific training films. One scene that stuck in my mind was of a woman at a party sitting on an upstairs railing. Of course she falls off the railing and lands on the woman carrying a tray of drinks. They then showed the various ways to treat the injuries that would result from this totally plausible everyday accident - extruded bones and broken glass embedded in the eye.

They used to also show us a film in elementary from the National Film Board of Canada that was all about what happened if you tried to play on roadside snowbanks after the snowplow went past. The resulting body damage and blood flow over the pristine white snow was just about the most horrific things I ever saw as a child and remember, I had been to Africa.

So it's with great joy that I post these great images from old time safety manuals. I love the crappy art and the way the creators have put some effort into imagining the worst things that could happen to a kid. For some reason they also saw the bicycle as nothing more than an instrument of death.