Consumer- and corporate-grade wireless is in general harmless to living organisms. But that doesn't mean that indirect damage doesn't occur. It indeed does - explaining my recent absence from these pages.
Before we go too far with this, I still do not believe that electromagnetic radiation, at least in the forms used by consumers and in enterprise applications, causes any negative health impacts in humans or other living things. No cancer, no brain tumors, nothing like that. But it can, indeed, at least indirectly, cause severe injury – and I have proof.
To cut to the chase, I recently broke my right arm. Oh, and not just a little break or hairline fracture – I mean really broke it, big time. What I did actually shattered the head of the radius (right at the elbow), one of the two bones in the forearm, requiring surgical replacement of the aforementioned portion of bone with a cobalt-chromium prosthesis (see here, last image on the page, for an idea of what my situation is). The good news is that despite some stiffness and a good deal of pain at present, I can expect a complete recovery over the next few months. I was in fact quite amazed at how well the healthcare system worked in my case, from the emergency room to the surgeon and the hospital where the repair was done to rehab. I have zero complaints and more gratitude than I can express. I could not be more pleased, as well as thrilled, literally, with both the personal care afforded and the remarkable technology applied.
So, how did I create this colossal screw-up, and how does that relate to wireless? Well, I’ve been doing some testing for Network World (the article is almost done and will appear shortly), and some of the products involved came in retail packages – you know, the kind with glossy cardboard outer sleeves. I knocked all of these down to put out with a lot of other cardboard for recycling. So, at 7:00 AM on 7 February, I had all of this neatly stacked at the curb. After bringing out the rest of the trash and depositing it at said curb, I turned to return to the house. Well, I just happened to step on the edge of the huge pile of cardboard, and, the friction in all those layers of glossy print being what it was, I next found myself on the ground. I was more shocked than in pain, but, upon returning to the house, I discovered that my right arm wasn’t working well at all. A quick personal diagnosis of fracture was made, followed by a trip to the emergency room, and thus the remainer of the tale above.
The moral of the story is that wireless can indeed be, indirectly, anyway, hazardous to one’s health. It certainly has been in my case. Oh, and, of course, watching where one places one’s feet can be a simple antidote to these otherwise serious threats. I shall take greater care in the future.
