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Ladders: accidents waiting to happen
Author(s) -
Tsipouras Spire,
Hendrie James M,
Silvapulle Mervyn J
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
medical journal of australia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.904
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1326-5377
pISSN - 0025-729X
DOI - 10.5694/j.1326-5377.2001.tb143403.x
Subject(s) - medicine , injury severity score , retrospective cohort study , emergency medicine , medical record , occupational safety and health , injury prevention , emergency department , poison control , surgery , pathology , psychiatry
Abstract Objectives To examine the nature, severity and outcomes of injuries sustained from ladder falls. Design Retrospective survey of medical records. Patients and setting Patients who presented after a fall from a ladder to the emergency department of a tertiary hospital in Melbourne, Victoria, between January 1994 and December 1997. Main outcome measures Demographic characteristics; height and mechanism of fall: injury site and Injury Severity Score (ISS); rate of hospital admissions. Results 163 patients presented after ladder falls. They were aged 2.5 to 86 years (mean age, 48 years); 83% were male, and 78% were injured in non‐occupational settings. Almost half the accidents (43%) were caused by ladder instability (ladder sliding from position or tilting sideways). Most patients had mild or moderate injuries (usually of the extremities), but 13% had an ISS ≥ 16 (indicating severe trauma), usually with head, chest or spinal injuries; 42% were admitted to hospital. Multiple regression analyses showed that ISS increased signficantly with height of fall and age ( P <0.05 for both), although a substantial amount of variation was not attributable to these variables. Likelihood of Hospital admission increased linearly with increasing ISS to an ISS of 8 and remained high thereafter. Conclusions Ladder falls resulted in significant morbidity, with men undertaking non‐occupational activities comprising most of those injured. New strategies to encourage safe ladder use are needed.