Characteristics of the cases of bicycle and motorcycle accidents referred to the Emergency Department

Abstract

Objective: Traffic accidents involving bicycles and motorcycles have higher mortality and morbidity rate. In this article, epidemiologic features of the patients suffered from motorcycle and bicycle crashes referred to our emergency department were evaluated.
Methods: Data was collected prospectively on motorcycle and bicycle victims who presented to our department between May 2008 and November 2008. Features such as age, gender, mechanism of trauma, license ownership, use of protection devices, trauma severity, injury patterns, length of stay in the hospital and mortality rates were discussed.
Results: Fifty-seven cases were included into the study. Of the cases; 91.2% were male, mean age was 26.8±15.7 years and median was 25. None of the cases had personal protective equipment such as helmets, knee pads or gloves and only 40% of them had their driving license endorsed for motorcycle use. The first three body systems mostly exposed to the trauma were head&neck (38.7%), skin&soft tissue (24.0%) and upper and lower extremities (20.1%). Mean length of hospital stay of the cases was 7±12.7 days and median was 3 days. Eight of the cases (14%) died.
Conclusions: This study is noteworthy as it reveals that young males were mostly affected in the bicycle and motorcycle accidents in our province, no attention is paid for the personal protective devices, 60% of the drivers did not have driving license endorsed for motorcycle use and head trauma is an important mortality and morbidity cause in this type of accidents.