Pedestrian Versus Motor Vehicle Accidents: An Analysis of 5,000 Patients
INTRODUCTION
Pedestrian versus motor vehicle accidents are common in urban areas and are associated with substantial morbidity and mortality. The impact imparts substantial force to the victim, which can be debilitating. Although pedestrians were involved in only 2% of all traffic injuries, they accounted for 13% of all traffic-related deaths.1 Most victims were previously functional individuals. A large proportion are children.2,3 The health care costs are considerable, as are lost years of life and forfeited earnings.
Previous studies have typically examined these injury profiles on an individual hospital basis and have been constrained by relatively small populations.2-5 Using the Los Angeles County trauma database, which contains information from 13 trauma centers in the county, our goal in this study was to examine the demographics and injury profiles of pedestrian versus motor vehicle accidents in a trauma system. This report constitutes our analysis of these patients.
Introduction | Methods | Results | Discussion | References