Staggering number of phone-related injuries in past five years

Almost 10,000 Kiwis have made cellphone-related injury claims in the past five years.

ACC said 2375 of the 9868 injuries were caused by loss or balance or loss of control.

A total of 1673 were injuries to the face, 1114 were dental injuries, and 355 were eye injuries. The next most common injuries were to the neck and lower back.

ACC injury prevention lead James Whitaker told Breakfast this morning said the number of injuries could a lot more than 10,000.

"This information comes from the ACC forms, so it relies on people actually mentioning that a phone was in use at the time of their injury, so treat it as a kind of bare minimum."

Whitaker said there are also a number of ways Kiwis can prevent these kinds of injuries.

"Have a bit of a think before you do things, do one thing at a time, instead of multitasking.

"Most injuries are recurring because people are either losing control, they're losing their balance, they're colliding with things, or they're getting knocked over.

"All of those things indicate people are doing more than one thing at a time, multitasking is overrated, just don't do it."

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Whitaker said he hopes the number of phone-related injuries doesn't climb but it's quite possible.

He said around 90% of all injuries are avoidable and ACC wants to encourage Kiwis to have foresight instead of hindsight.