Articles Tagged with personal injury

Many children suffer personal injuries during the winter. Many of these injuries are related to skiing, snow boarding and sledding but doctors at emergency rooms in California also said they are seeing a lot of surf injuries around winter time. Overuse injuries are also common especially when winter is warmer than usual. Growing up athletes continue to practice the same sport they usually practice during summer over fall and winter not allowing sufficient time to rest to their bodies.

Children have a much higher risk of getting injured in skiing and snowboarding activities than adults.  Most injuries occur when children are still learning how to ski or how to snowboard.  When a student skier or snowboarder doesn’t have full control of his or her movement, he or she can sometimes be unable to avoid obstacles. Confirmed skiers usually also know how to fall safely. ER doctors note that male children have a higher risk to suffer severe head and neck injuries. These type of injuries often happen when a youth skis or snowboards too fast for his skill level.

It may seem surprising but on the West Coast surf injuries are also pretty common among youth during the winter. The waves are usually bigger during the winter and emergency room doctors are seeing an increase in head injuries, broken bones as well as ankle and knee sprains.

Personal injury is the number one cause of death among children 1 to 18 year old in America.  Every year, 1 out of 4 children will end up at the emergency room to be treated for unintentional or intentional injury. Some of them will end up with lifelong disabilities. On average, the  American Academy of Pediatrics estimates that $50 billion is spent each year in the US to care for injured children. Children’s injuries often cause emotional distress not only to the child but also to the family. The financial burden caused by injured children often add to the existing stress caused by the injury itself.

Recently, the American Academy of Pediatrics published Best Practices for  Pediatric Injury Care.  In their guidelines, the lead authors David W. Tuggle, MD, FAAP, FACS and Sally K. Snow, RN, BSN, CPEN, FAEN  recommend that:

• A pediatric trauma system be included in every emergency medical service (EMS) or hospital

What are the risks of injury while surfing? As the swell of tropical storms Gaston and Hermine are hitting the East Coast, New York surfers are getting amped-up by possible big waves coming for this Labor Day week-end.  But is it dangerous?

A recent study published in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine says no. The study entitled “Surfing USA: an epidemiological study of surfing injuries presenting to US EDs 2002 to 2013” was conducted by Cole Klick, MD, Courtney M.C. Jones, PHD, MPH and David Hadler, MD, MPH from the Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Rochester – Strong Memorial Hospital, Rochester, NY, USA.  They analysed 12 years of data related to surf accidents and injury in the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System database from the US Consumer Product Safety Commission. They came to the conclusion that surfers do get hurt very often but the injuries are rarely serious.

Among the 2,072 cases analyzed, 41% of the injuries were lacerations, 14% were sprains and strains, 13% were contusions and 12% were fractures. Hospital admission rates were extremely low with 96% of the injured surfers visiting the ER being released after treatment. While the median age of injured surfers showing up at the ER was 27 years old, the study shows that older surfers above 60 were the ones at risk of being admitted for trunk injuries or internal organ injuries. Body parts most often injured were lower extremities, face, head and neck.