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Objective: To describe and compare injury patterns of skiers and snowboarders referred to a Level 1 Trauma Center in a Northeastern State as compared to published reports from Western States.
Design: Retrospective chart review.
Setting: A single Level 1 Trauma Center.
Patients: All patients evaluated at our Trauma Center for ski or snowboard related injuries from December 2010 through March 2016.
Interventions: None.
Main Outcome Measures: Patient demographics, ISS, injuries identified, and need for procedure.
Results: A total of 548 patients were identified. Of these, 393 (71.7%) were skiers and 155 (28.2%) were snowboarders. Skiers were more likely to be helmeted (59.5% vs. 37.4%, p<0.001), to require an operative intervention (45.5% vs. 28.4%, p<0.001), and to have lower extremity fractures (30.0% vs. 7.7%, p<0.001) than snowboarders. Snowboarders were more likely to have abdominal injuries (25.8% vs. 9.7%, p<0.001) including splenic lacerations (11.6% vs. 3.8%, p=0.02) and to have lumbar spine injuries (15.4% vs 8.9% p=0.025) than skiers. We found no difference in head, upper extremity, thoracic or pelvic injuries between skiers and snowboarders. Our data demonstrates close similarities to injury patterns described previously in Western States with the exception of a higher percentage of head (38.9%) and spine (26.5%) injuries.
Conclusions: Terrain, snow conditions, and slope crowding differ greatly between Northeastern and Western ski areas. We hypothesized that the Northeastern skier/snowboarder would show different patterns of injuries. With the exception of trauma to the head and spine, the patterns of injury were strikingly similar. Furthermore, both regions see ski/snowboard injuries with a high ISS, warranting further investigation into injury patterns, risk stratification (i.e.; safety equipment, skier/snowboarder ability, trail density, mountain conditions, etc), and prevention efforts.