Characteristics of injuries caused by paragliding accidents: A cross-sectional study

doi:10.5847/wjem.j.1920-8642.2015.03.011

Abstract

Abstract:

BACKGROUND: This study was undertaken to analyze the characteristics and risk factors relating to fatalities and injuries caused by paragliding.
METHODS: The judicial examination reports and hospital documents of 82 patients traumatized in 64 accidents during 242 355 paragliding jumps between August 2004 and September 2011 were analyzed.
RESULTS: In these accidents, 18 of the 82 patients lost their lives. In the patients with a confirmed cause of accident, most of them were involved with multiple fractures and internal organ injuries (n=8, 44.4%).
CONCLUSION: We investigated the incidence of paragliding injuries, the types of the injuries, and the severity of affected anatomical regions. The findings are significant for the prevention of paragliding injuries and future research.

Key words: Paragliding accidents, Injuries, Turkey

Umut Canbek, Ahmet İmerci, Ulaş Akgün, Murat Yeşil, Ali Aydin, Yasemin Balci. Characteristics of injuries caused by paragliding accidents: A cross-sectional study[J]. World Journal of Emergency Medicine, 2015, 6(3): 221-224.

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References 18

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Year	Paragliding jumps			Accidents	Rate of accidents (1 000)
Year	Single	Tandem	Total	Accidents	Rate of accidents (1 000)
2004			10 738	7	0.65
2005			11 488	0	0
2006			12 570	1	0.08
2007			30 947	4	0.13
2008			31 440	4	0.13
2009			34 049	11	0.32
2010	13 080	40 056	53 136	16	0.30
2011	16 853	41 133	57 986	21	0.36
Total			242 354	64	0.26

Types of injury	Dead	Survived	Total
Polytrauma	15	16	31
Isolated lower extremity injury		13	13
Isolated upper extremity injury		8	8
Head and neck injury	1		1
Drowning		5	5
Thorax injury	2	2	4
Abdominal injury		1	1
Isolated spine injury		2	2
Soft tissue injury		17	17
Total	18	64	82

Fracture locations	Dead	Survived	Total
Vertebra
Cervical	4		4
Thoracic		2	2
Lumbar	6	15	21
Pelvis	5	3	8
Lower extremity
Hip-femur	8	2	10
Knee	3		3
Tibia	4	7	11
Foot-ankle	6	13	19
Upper extremity
Shoulder-humerus	5	3	8
Elbow	4	5	9
Forearm	2	4	6
Wrist-hand	2	5	7
Total	49	59	108

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