Snowboarding

CDC: Snowboarders Lead Emergency Room Visits

Here’s a dubious honor recently bestowed upon shredders. According a recent study by the United States’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the journal Wilderness and Environmental Medicine, snowboarders lead the dubious category “outdoor recreational injuries” by a long shot.

According to the study, detailed here, almost 26 percent of the nearly 213,000 people that visited emergency rooms due to outdoor recreational injuries between 2004 and 2005 were snowboarders. That’s about 54,000 visits by shredders alone.

The second and third-most dangerous activities? Sledding (10.8 percent) and hiking (6.3 percent).

Hiking?

Among the other statistics highlighted:

• Half the visits were by kids and young adults aged 10-24.
• Common injuries were fractures (27.4 percent) and sprains (23.9 percent).
• Of these, most injuries were to the arms or legs (52 percent) or to the head or neck (23.3 percent).
• 6.5 percent of  injuries treated were diagnosed as “traumatic brain injury”. Geeez.

Anyway, it’s no surprise the CDC recommends helmets. “By wearing the appropriate helmet for snowboarding, snowmobiling, sledding and rock climbing, you can reduce your risk of having a head injury, which could become a traumatic brain injury,” said Arlene Greenspan, Dr. PH and co-author of the study, in a press release. “Helmets are one piece of equipment that can have a critical, positive impact.”

Wise words indeed.

© 2008 HighlyObsessed.com | The Snowboarding and Cycling Blog