Motor vehicle crashes and spinal injury

Accident reports for 67 patients admitted to 3 spinal cord injury units in Australia in 1987 as a result of motor vehicle accidents were examined. Two thirds of the accidents occurred during the Friday-Saturday-Sunday leisure period and about 60% occurred during the November-February Australian summer holiday season. This conforms to the general Australian pattern of road trauma which is predominantly a consequence of leisure travel. The likelihood of a road traffic injury resulting in damage to the spinal cord was highest for motorcyclists whose average age was 22.7, lower than that for vehicle drivers (33.7) and vehicle passengers (38.1). However the most important finding is that most car occupants received their injuries when the motor vehicle overturned. As vehicle rollovers are relatively rare in the total spectrum of traffic crashes this distribution is thought not to have been previously reported. Some possible mechanisms of spinal cord injury are reviewed and engineering solutions to prevent future injuries are recommended. The paper also emphasises the unique opportunity for Australia to collect meaningful data on the causes of spinal injury and advocates the creation of an Australian Spinal Cord Injury Registry.