• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.231-236
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• 2016

Background: To analyze the effects of the factors associated with different types of injury (superficial wounds, dislocations and sprains, bone fractures, concussion and internal injuries, burns scalding and freezing) caused by occupational accidents in automotive repair workshops. Methods: Study of a sample consisting of 89,954 industry accidents reported from 2003 to 2008. Odds ratios were calculated with a 95% confidence interval. Results: Belonging to a small company is a risk factor for suffering three of the five types of injury studied. Women are less likely to suffer burns and superficial wounds, and more likely to suffer dislocations or sprains. Foreign workers are more likely to suffer concussion and internal injuries. Conclusion: Health and safety strategies and accident prevention measures should be individualized and adapted to the type of worker most likely to be injured in each type of accident. Occupational health and safety training courses designed according to worker profile, and improving the participation of the workers in small firms creating regional or roving safety representatives would improve working conditions.

• The Korean Journal of Emergency Medical Services
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.7-19
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• 2016

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to investigate the correlation between injury and injury severity score (ISS) in geriatric traffic accident patients transported by 119 emergency medical technicians (EMTs). Methods: The subjects were 240 traffic accident patients over 65 years old transported by 119 rescue services emergency departments in Busan from January 1, 2014 to August 31, 2015. Results: ISS increased in motorcycle traffic accidents (p=.026), truck injuries (p=.005), and head and neck injury (p<.001). Vital signs were evaluated by 119 rescue EMT. ISS increased in cases of unresponsive unconsciousness (p<.001), hypotension (p=.001), and bradycardia (p<.001). The need for bleeding control and dressing by the EMTs increased ISS significantly (p=.022). Conclusion: In the initial evaluation of geriatric traffic patients, ISS can increase in motor cycle accidents and truck injuries. Due to high ISS, patients with head and neck injury, chest injury, hypotension, or tachycardia should be transferred to advanced level hospitals.

• Journal of Trauma and Injury
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.447-450
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• 2023

Traumatic abdominal wall hernia is a rare presentation, most commonly reported in the context of motor vehicle accidents and associated with blunt abdominal injuries and handlebar injuries in the pediatric population. A 13-year-old boy presented with multiple traumatic injuries and hemodynamic instability after a high-speed motor vehicle accident. His injuries consisted of massive traumatic abdominal wall hernia (grade 4) with bowel injury and perforation, blunt aortic injury, a Chance fracture, hemopneumothorax, and a humeral shaft fracture. Initial surgical management included partial resection of the terminal ileum, sigmoid colon, and descending colon. Laparostomy was managed with negative pressure wound therapy. The patient underwent skin-only primary closure of the abdominal wall and required multiple returns to theatre for debridement, dressing changes, and repair of other injuries. Various surgical management options for abdominal wall closure were considered. In total, he underwent 36 procedures. The multiple injuries had competing management aims, which required close collaboration between specialist clinicians to form an individualized management plan. The severity and complexity of this injury was of a scale not previously experienced by many clinicians and benefited from intrahospital and interhospital specialist collaboration. The ideal aim of primary surgical repair was not possible in this case of a giant abdominal wall defect.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.51-59
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• 1986

This study was conducted to analyse the exact causes of occupational accidents in Korean construction industry and to contribute to the accident prevention programs. The results and conclusions of the field survey are as follows ： 1) The accidents caused by hazardous conditions are 96 percent, and those by unsafe acts are 97.3 percent. The accidents caused simultaneously by two categories are nore than 96 percent. 2) The injured workers who were employed less than 3 months are 71.1 percent. Safety training for newly recruited workers should be required. 3) More than 40 percent of all accidents were occurred in the morning and more than 30 percent were in summer. Required caution should be paid for the time and season. 4) Fracture, cut/laceration/puncture and multiple injuries in the lower extremeties, upper entremeties and head as well as many kinds of injuries by the fall from elevation mainly occurred. Safety. shoes, safety gloves, safety helmets, safety glasses, face shields and safity belts should be used 5) As the sources of injuries, each of building/structure and materials is one third of all sources, and machinery is a quarter. 6) The use of hazardous methods/procedures, defects of agencies and inadequate guarding of builing/structure, materials' and machinery mainly caused the accident types, such as s truck by, struck against, fall from elevation, and fall on same level. Such a hazardous conditiion should not be used and be correctet 7) The unsafe acts, such as improper use of hands or body parts, the operation or working at unsafe speed and improper use of equipment mainly caused accidents. Safety training for the control of such a unsafe acts should be strengthened.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons
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• v.47 no.6
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• pp.432-437
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• 2021

Objectives: The mandible and other parts of the maxillofacial region suffer significant morbid injuries following road traffic accidents. Our study gives epidemiological description of mandibular fractures in Ghana and also evaluates the relevance of closed reduction and indirect fixation for managing mandibular fractures in low-resource health facilities in low-income countries like Ghana. Patients and Methods: This is a retrospective study involving 268 patients who reported to the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery of the Sunyani Regional Hospital with mandibular fractures from January 2010 to December 2019. Patient medical records were assessed for information on age, sex, fracture etiology, anatomic location of fracture, time of day of road traffic accident, and other associated injuries. Results: A total of 268 patients were included in this study (males, 216 [80.6%]; females, 52 [19.4%]). Motor vehicular accident (MVA) was the leading cause of mandibular fractures (202 injuries, 75.4%). Other etiologies included assault (39, 14.6%), gunshot (13, 4.9%), falls (12, 4.5%), and industrial accidents (2, 0.7%). Of the 161 male cases caused by MVA, 121 (75.2%) occurred at night and in the evening while the remaining 40 (24.8%) occurred in the morning and afternoon. Among all managed 222 patients, 212 (79.1%) were treated with closed reduction and indirect fixation technique while 10 (3.7%) were treated with open reduction and direct fixation. Conclusion: Closed reduction with indirect fixation could successfully be used to manage mandibular fractures in low resourced health facilities, especially in low-income countries. The poor lightening system on roads in Ghana is a major contributory factor to motor vehicular accidents.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.104-113
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• 2010

Domestic insurance claims were statistically investigated to analyze the elderly driver's accident patterns and injury types in side impact crashes. Medical treatment records and accident vehicle damage photos have been surveyed for 5,419 cases. The results of our statistical analysis showed that the thorax injury risk of the elderly drive group is 8.8 and 4.0 times higher than that of the young and middle age group respectively. Diagnosis showed that most thorax injuries were caused by rib fracture. The head injury risk of the elderly female driver group seemed to be higher than that of the younger female driver group, however, statistical test has not been conducted because of the lack of number of samples for elderly female accident.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.136-147
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to analyze four cases of firefighter burns in various fire scenes and to find prevention measures to decrease firefighter injuries. Among the analysis reports prepared by the National Fire Research Institute of Korea from 2016 to 2020, four burn-related accidents are summarized and the main causes are conveyed. The four accidents include second-degree burns from using extinguishers during containment of fires; nine firefighters burned due to re-ignition in the LPG car repair shop; two firefighters injured with third-degree burns from using fire extinguishers during life-saving events in residential housing; and injuries from the radiant heat of the tank BLEVE near the factory fire. These cases are comprehensively investigated in their respective scenes and analyzed based on the fire site investigation reports from the fire department and related theoretical explanations of risk for each accident scene. In the third case study, some experimental research is conducted to evaluate the risk involved with the use of safety gloves. This is evaluated by reviewing Fire Tactics and Standard Operational Procedures (SOP) to determine improvements and recommendations for an efficient firefighting response. Results show that the main causes of burn accidents are the insufficient use of personal protective equipment (PPE), such as safety gloves, and the failure to follow firefighting tactics or SOPs. Through the accident investigation and assessment, it is concluded that to reduce the frequency of burn accidents, the performance of firefighting equipment, SOPs, protection tactics, and safety policy systems require improvement.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.327-336
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• 1977

A chinical analysis was performed on 383 ases of hest injurjes eperienced at Department of thoraci Surgery, Seoul National University Hospital during 21 year period From 1957 to 1977. Of 383 patients o hest injuries, 209 cases were result from nonpenetrating injuries whereas 175 were from penetrating injuries, and there were 258 cases of hemothorax or/and pneumothorax, 162 of rib fracture, 33 of foreign body, 26 of clavicle frcture, 26 of lung contusion, 17 of diaphragmati laceration, 14 of hemoperiardium, 14 of flail chest and others. Stab wound was the most common in penetrating injuries and followed by gunshot and shell fragments. The majority of nonpenetrating chest injury paiens were traffi accident vitims and falls accounted for the next largest group of accidents. Chest injuries were frequently encountered in the age group between 16 and 50 years, and 321 patients were male comparing to 62 of female. In blunt hest injuries the patients with five or more rib fractures had a 85 per ent incidence of intrathoracic injury and 19 per cent had an intraabdominal organ damage, whereas those with four or less rib fractures had a 69 per cent and a 6 per cent incidence respectively. The principal associated injuries were cerebral contusion on 19 cases, renal contusion on 10, liver laceration on 7, peripheral vessel laceration on 5, spleen laceration on 3 and extremity fracture on 18 patients. The principles of therapy for early complications of chest trauma were rapid reexpansion of the lungs by thoracentesis (46 cases) and closed thoracotomy (125 cases) but open thoracotomy had to be done on 90 cases (23.5%) because of massive bleeding or intrapleural hematoma, foreign body, cardiac injury, diaphragmatic laceration and bronhial rupture. The over all mortality was 2.87 per cent (11 among 383 cases), 8 cases were from penetrating injuries and 3 from nonpenetrating injuries.

• Advances in pediatric surgery
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.115-122
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• 2005

Falls from a height are the leading cause of injury and death among urban children. This study describes the incidence, clinical characteristics, and treatment results of children under 15 year of age who fell from a height of more than one meter and were admitted for abdominal injury. The medical records of 585 consecutive patients treated between January 1997 and December 2003 at Ewha Womans University Mokdong Hospital were analyzed retrospectively. The falling heights were 1 to 31.2 meters, and 28 patients(4.8 %) suffered from blunt abdominal trauma. The male to female ratio was 2.1: 1. The median age of the victims was 5.5 years, and the median height fallen was 3 meters. Fifteen patients (53.6 %) were injured during the summer and seventy-nine percent of the falls occurred between noon and 9 pm. Eighteen (64.3 %) of falls occurred in residential place and 19(67.8 %) of patients arrived at the emergency department within 30 minutes of the accident. Only 16 patients (57.1 %) complained of abdominal pain. Liver injuries were found in 12(42.9 %), spleen injuries in 5(17.9 %), kidney injuries 3(10.7 %), pancreatic injuries in 1(3.6 %) and nonspecific abdominal injuries in 9(32.1 %) cases. Increased SGOT and SGPT were found in 23(82.2 %) and 18(64.3 %) cases. Eleven patients (39.3 %) had associated head injuries. Limb injuries were present in 17.9% and thoracic injuries in 7.1%. Twenty-five patients (89.3 %) recovered without operation. The median length of hospital stay was 6 days (2 -20 days). Despite the absence of abdominal symptoms or shock, falls from a height in children may carry significant intra-abdominal organ injuries. The height falling could not predict the degree of the abdominal injury. For the evaluation of potential abdominal injuries, CT scan should be utilized.

• Journal of Trauma and Injury
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.147-154
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• 2021

Purpose: We analyzed the characteristics and outcomes of patients with bicycle-related injuries at a regional trauma center in northern Gyeonggi Province as a first step toward the development of improved prevention measures and treatments. Methods: The records of 239 patients who were injured in different types of bicycle-related accidents and transported to a single regional trauma center between January 2017 and December 2018 were examined. This retrospective single-center study used data from the Korea Trauma Database. Results: In total, 239 patients experienced bicycle-related accidents, most of whom were males (204, 85.4%), and 46.9% of the accidents were on roads for automobiles. Forty patients (16.7%) had an Injury Severity Score (ISS) of 16 or more. There were 125 patients (52.3%) with head/neck/face injuries, 97 patients (40.6%) with injuries to the extremities, 59 patients (24.7%) with chest injuries, and 21 patients (8.8%) with abdominal injuries. Patients who had head/neck/face injuries and an Abbreviated Injury Score (AIS) ≥3 were more likely to experience severe trauma (ISS ≥16). In addition, only 13 of 125 patients (10.4%) with head/neck/face injuries were wearing helmets, and patients with injuries in this region who were not wearing helmets had a 3.9-fold increased odds ratio of severe injury (AIS ≥2). Conclusions: We suggest that comprehensive accident prevention measures, including safety training and expansion of safety facilities, should be implemented at the governmental level, and that helmet wearing should be more strictly enforced to prevent injuries to the head, neck, and face.