Your Friendly New England Winter Weather Reminder to Walk Like a Penguin

Editor's note: This article was written by a Townsquare Media Northern New England contributor and may contain the individual's views, opinions or personal experiences.

Shuffle, waddle, lean forward, we've heard them all. It all boils down to walking like a penguin in these slick conditions that plague us much of the winter.

Even though we know to be careful, we all hit those rushed or cocky moments and BOOM.

I am so totally guilty of stepping over a snow bank from the street, instead of walking around to the sidewalk entrance, and BAM, I slipped on hidden ice right here on Washington Street in Dover, New Hampshire. OUCH.  A week later, I'm still paying the price after jamming my right hand during the fall.

I'm still icing and popping ibuprofen, keeping two of my still-swollen fingers taped as they turn blue, black, and yellow, and feeling lucky that I didn't break any fingers that are still painful to the touch.  If only I'd walked like a penguin like this cute, animated penguin video demonstrates.

I was even more shocked to learn that according to MSN, about 1 million of us across the country are injured annually because of falls on ice and snow, with about 17,000 of those falls being fatal.

And what do you know? Shortly after learning that stat, this post from OnlyInBos appears in my feed.  Walk like a penguin.  Yes, this is the same diagram The Farmer's Almanac uses as a winter life hack.

So consider this your friendly reminder to walk like a penguin.  I've even included this handy dandy video with a real person, too.

Have you ever had a really bad fall on ice and snow?