The Mechanism of Injury and the Distribution of Three Thousand Fractures and Dislocations Caused by Parachute Jumping

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Injuries to Dutch sport parachutists.

Steinberg¹

1988

“…Quick recovery from the PLF is essential to collapse the 'chute fully and thus avoid being dragged by wind gust. (Ciccone et al, 1948;Davis, 1964;Hallel et al, 1975;Neel, 1951;Petras et al, 1983;Pirson et al, 1985). Certain factors, however, distinguish military parachutists from sport parachutists.…”

Section: Equipmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parachuting injuries: a study of 110,000 sports jumps.

Ellitsgaard¹

1987

A study was undertaken to examine the type, location, incidence and mechanism of injury sustained by amateur parachutists in Denmark during a five-year-period. A total of 110,000 parachute jumps resulted in six (0.005%) fatalities and 155 (0.14%) cases, requiring medical treatment. The latter group sustained 176 injuries of which 36.9% were significant soft tissue lesions and 63.1% fractures. Landing is the most dangerous part of the parachuting procedure, causing 83.8% of the accidents, while 9.3% were caused by faults during opening of the parachute. Based on the injury pattern, some modifications to the procedures and equipment are mentioned. A simplification of the parachute landing fall and the development of safer parachutes may reduce the incidence of casualties. An enforcement of the present regulations is necessary as many injuries are the result of noncompliance with regulations due to ignorance, inexperience or carelessness.

“…6 From Great Britain, injury rates of 120-360 per 100 000 jumps have been reported, with the risk of injury being up to 12 times higher for novices than for those having jumped at least once before. [7][8][9] Several studies have investigated military parachuting, [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] but armed forces parachuting differs from skydiving in important aspects such as demography, training, environmental conditions for jumping and parachute flight characteristics. Thus, no available literature on civilian or armed forces parachuting is suited to form a basis for prevention of modern skydiving injuries.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Injuries in Swedish skydiving

Westman

Björnstig²

2007

Objective: To create a basis for prevention of modern skydiving injuries. Design: Descriptive epidemiological study. Setting: National total material. Patients: Data on all reported injury events (n = 257) in Swedish skydiving 1999-2003 (total 539 885 jumps) were retrieved from the Swedish Parachute Association. Non-fatally injured skydivers were sent a questionnaire asking for event and injury details (response rate 89%), and supplementary hospital records were retrieved for the most serious injuries (n = 85). Human, equipment and environmental factors were assessed for risk. Main Outcome Measurements: Frequency and severity of injuries. Results: Incidence of non-fatal injury events was 48 per 100 000 jumps. The lower extremities, spine and shoulders were important regions of injury. The most serious injuries were experienced by licensed skydivers, but students in training had a higher injury rate and more often left the sport because of the injury. Of two student-training systems, one had an incidence less than half that of the other. Conclusions: A basis for prevention was created, showing a potential for reduction of frequency and severity of injuries with training and technical interventions.