Personal Injury Fact Overview
Personal Injury — Selected Facts:
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), in 2005 in the US there were:
- 40.9 million visits to office-based physicians
- 5.4 million visits to hospital outpatient departments
- 28.4 million emergency department visits
- 117,809 unintentional injury deaths (the fifth most frequent cause of death and the leading cause of death for those under 35 years of age)
- 45,343 motor vehicle traffic deaths (15.3 per 100,000 population)
- 23,618 unintentional poisoning deaths (8 per 100,000 population)
- 19,656 unintentional fall deaths (6.6 per 100,000 population)
Nonfatal Injuries
| 2002–2004 Average Annual Emergency Department Initial Visits | 2002–2004 Average Annual Hospitalizations | |
| Superficial injuries and contusions | 6,095,000 | 63,000 |
| Open wounds | 5,756,000 | 94,000 |
| Sprains and strains | 5,510,000 | 51,000 |
| Fractures | 3,443,000 | 1,028,600 |
| Internal organ injuries | 359,000 | 224,000 |
For more than two-thirds of hospitalized, and nearly all other nonfatal injuries, data on the external cause of the injury is available. Where the external cause of injury is specified, the leading cause of medically attended nonfatal injuries is falls. Injuries due to motor vehicle traffic accidents, being struck by or striking accidentally against objects, and overexertion and strenuous movements also make up a large portion of the injuries.
Fatal Injuries
The top five causes of injury deaths by mechanism account for 81 percent of all injury deaths:
| Leading causes of death from injury by mechanism (deaths in 2003) | Leading causes of injury deaths by injury (deaths in 2003) |
| Motor vehicle traffic (43,340) | Traumatic brain injury (51,322) |
| Firearm (30,136) | Fractures (17,706) |
| Poisoning (28,700) | Thorax (17,879) |
| Fall (18,044) | |
| Suffocation (12,992) |
