[Accidents in children and adolescents]

Injury is the most important threat to health of children and the leading cause of death in children after the first year of life. The death of an otherwise normal child is a tragedy. Crippling injuries to a child and the need for rehabilitation have a greater effect on our health system; the child's image of himself as an incomplete individual is another tragedy during the whole life of a child. With this system's approach of continuum of care, of integrated prehospital treatment and transport, hospital resuscitation, intensive care, and rehabilitation of the injured child, optimal management of this most fatal disease of modern society can be attained; nationwide injury prevention programs contribute to diminish accident frequency and lead to improvement in child safety. Trauma management and injury control are a challenge for all emergency physicians, especially pediatric surgeons.