A girls uses a phone to send a text message. My Svensson, a 17-year-old student, needed only 61 seconds to write a 141-character SMS message rich in crisp words and snappy punctuation to claim the Swedish text messaging championship.(AFP/File/Stan Honda)

- THURSDAY, Aug. 21 (HealthDay News) — Text messaging may not seem
an obvious safety concern. But the American College of Emergency
Physicians warns that being distracted by text messaging at inappropriate
times — such as when crossing streets — can result in serious injury or
death.

Teens and young adults, in particular, “are arriving in emergency
departments with serious and sometimes fatal injuries, because they were
not paying attention while texting,” ACEP President Dr. Linda Lawrence
said in a news release.

“People are texting, and they trip and fall on their faces — usually
people in their 20s. We see a lot of face, chin, mouth (and) eye injuries
from falls,” said Dr. James Adams, professor and chairman of the
department of emergency medicine at Northwestern University's Feinberg
School of Medicine, in Chicago.

More serious injuries occur when people who are busy texting collide
with cyclists, rollerbladers and others.

“Some (people) are actually on (Chicago's busy) lakefront path texting
while walking or exercising. We see people rollerblading or biking while
texting. They are usually very skilled but sometimes crash and fall when
they are not watching where they are going,” Adams said.

Dr. Matthew Lewin, an emergency physician at University of California,
San Francisco Hospital, offered an example of how texting can be
deadly.

“In March, (we) were driving and saw a woman in her 20s step off the
curb and get struck square by a pickup truck. She was unconscious, and it
appeared she'd suffered a massive brain injury,” Lewin said. “You could
tell she saw the truck at the last moment, because her cell phone was
dropped right where she was struck just off the curb, and she was thrown
about 20 or 30 feet. It was horrifying.”

The woman was still alive after being struck but died after she reached
the hospital.

The ACEP offers the following safety tips:

• Don't text or use a cell phone while doing physical activities that
  require sustained attention.
• Never text or use a hand-held phone while operating a car or
  motorcycle, and use caution when using headsets.
• Keep cell phones and other electronic devices in easy-to-find
  locations, such as phone pockets or pouches. This will prevent you from
  becoming distracted by having to rummage through purses, backpacks or
  clothing trying to find the devices.
• Ignore calls or messages that arrive when you need to concentrate on
  demanding tasks such as driving. Better yet, turn devices off
  beforehand.
• Don't text in any situations where excessive inattention may
  compromise safety, such as while sitting alone at night, waiting for a
  bus, or in a crowded area where there's an increased risk of
  theft.

More information

For more about cell phone safety while driving, visit the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.