C. A. Butts1, R. Gonzalez2, J. P. Gaughan2, J. San Roman2, S. Ross2, J. Porter2, J. P. Hazelton2 1Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital,Acute Care Surgery,New Brunswick, NJ, USA 2Cooper University Hospital,Trauma, Surgical Critical Care, & Acute Care Surgery,Camden, NJ, USA
Introduction:
Recently, there has been an increase in the use of dirt bikes (DB) and all-terrain vehicles (ATV) in urban environments. Our previous work found that crashes involving urban off-road vehicles (UORV), defined as any ATV or DB accident which occurred on paved inner city/suburban/major roadways, resulted in different injury patterns than crashes which occurred in rural environments. The aim of this study is to compare the injury patterns of patients involved in crashes while riding urban off-road vehicles with motorcycles (MC).
Methods:
A retrospective review (2005-2016) of patients who presented to our urban Level I trauma center as a result of any MC or UORV crash was performed. Patients who presented more than 48 hours from time of accident were excluded. A p<0.05 was considered significant.
Results:
1556 patients were identified to have an MC or UORV crash resulting in injury [MC: n=1324 (85%); UORV: n=232 (15%)]. Patients involved in UORV accidents were younger (26.2 vs 39.6; p <0.05), less likely to be helmeted (39.6% vs 90.2%; p<0.05), but required fewer emergent trauma bay procedures (28.4% vs. 36.7%; p<0.05) and fewer operative interventions (45.9% vs 54.2%; p <0.05). Both group of patients had a similar ISS (12.2 vs 12.6; p=0.54) and presenting GCS (13.8 vs 13.5; p=0.46). Interestingly, UORV patients had a lower mortality (0.9% vs 4.7%; p <0.05) when compared to MC crash patients despite injury patterns being similar between both groups.
Conclusion:
Our data demonstrates that UORV riders are younger and less likely to be helmeted, but have a lower mortality rate following a crash, despite having similar injury patterns to motorcyclists. Even though our data suggests a lower mortality in this patient population, we feel that the fact that fewer than 50% of UORV patients were wearing helmets is unacceptable in this younger patient population. This data may provide a framework for legislative intervention for helmet laws to be more strictly enforced in this population and facilitate a more aggressive community outreach focusing on increased helmet compliance.