Falls from heights

Falls from heights are most commonly due to accidents in children and suicide, accident, and crime-related incidents in adults. Two types of injury result from falls from heights: injury resulting from direct impact and deceleration-type injury. The injuries resulting from direct impact are mostly fractures. The body position at impact is crucial. The deceleration forces immediately post-impact result primarily in visceral and internal injury, including cranial injury. There is a lack of correlation between os calcis fractures and vertebral fractures. Spinal cord injury is infrequent. Survival figures are higher than usually assumed.