Copyright
©The Author(s) 2020. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
Epidemiology and injury patterns of aerial sports in Switzerland
Henrik Constantin Bäcker, J Turner Vosseller, Aristomenis K Exadaktylos, Carsten Perka, Lorin Michael Benneker, Fabian Götz Krause, Moritz Caspar Deml
Henrik Constantin Bäcker, Lorin Michael Benneker, Fabian Götz Krause, Moritz Caspar Deml, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and Traumatology, Inselspital, University Hospital Bern, University Bern, Bern 3010, Switzerland
Henrik Constantin Bäcker, J Turner Vosseller, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, New York Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY 10032, United States
Henrik Constantin Bäcker, Carsten Perka, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and Traumatology, University Hospital Berlin, Charité Berlin, Berlin, 10117, Germany
Aristomenis K Exadaktylos, Department of Emergency Medicine, Inselspital, University Hospital Bern, University Bern, Bern, 3010, Switzerland
Author contributions: All authors equally contributed to this paper with conception and design of the study, literature review and analysis, drafting and critical revision and editing, and final approval of the final version.
Institutional review board statement: Approval obtained from the local ethic board Bern.
Informed consent statement: A waiver was obtained as this was a retrospective trial.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have nothing to disclose related to this work.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available as the consent was not obtained.
STROBE statement: The guidelines of the STROBE Statement have been adopted.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Henrik Constantin Bäcker, MD, Doctor, Postdoctoral Fellow, Surgeon, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and Traumatology, Inselspital Bern, University Hospital Bern, University Bern, Freiburgstrasse 8, Bern 3010, Switzerland. henrik.baecker@sports-med.org
Received: October 3, 2019
Peer-review started: October 3, 2019
First decision: October 13, 2019
Revised: October 15, 2019
Accepted: November 28, 2019
Article in press: November 28, 2019
Published online: February 18, 2020
BACKGROUND
Airborne sports have become more popular in recent years. The number of accidents has increased linearly as athletes take increasingly greater risks to experience the adventurous spirit of this kind of sports.
AIM
To investigate the variety of injuries in airborne sport accidents, as well as which acute treatment these patients receive, both before and after admission to a level-one-trauma center.
METHODS
We performed a retrospective chart analysis at a major level-one-trauma center in Switzerland for 235-patients who were admitted following airborne sports injuries between 2010 and 2017. Patients’ demographic data, injury patterns, emergency primary care procedures and intra-hospital care were recorded.
RESULTS
Overall, 718-injuries in 235-patients were identified; the spine was the most commonly affected region with 46.5% of injuries (n = 334/718) in 143-patients. In 69-patients (15.5%), the (non-spine) thorax was affected, followed by the lower and upper extremity, pelvis, head/face and abdominal injuries. Eleven-patients had to be intubated at the trauma site. Three patients were resuscitated after onset of pulseless-electrical-activity. Two-patients died in the resuscitation room. In 116-cases, surgery was indicated including 55-emergency surgeries. Another 19 patients (8.1%) were transferred to the intensive care unit.
CONCLUSION
Paragliders are most commonly affected, although the highest injury severities were identified for Building, Antenna, Span and Earth-jumping athletes. First responders, treating physicians and pilots should be aware of the risk for potentially serious and life-threatening injury with an in-hospital mortality of 0.9%.
Core tip: We describe the different severities and types of injuries in individual airborne sports in one cohort. This study will improve the pre- and intra-/hospital management especially in the emergency department to accelerate and simplify the diagnostics and allow prompt and early initiation of the treatment. Furthermore, pilots will be more aware of injuries and injury patterns, which may help to develop new prevention programs.
