The Pattern of Injuries among the Victims of the Bam Earthquake

Background: On December 26, 2003 an earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale, shook the city of Bam in the south east of Iran and killed more than 40000 people and nearly 30000 were injured. This is an epidemiological study performed on the victims of Bam earthquake to analyze different types of injuries of patients admitted in Kerman hospitals. Methods: In a retrospective cross-sectional study the medical records of 1250 victims of Bam earthquake admitted in Kerman hospitals from December 26, 2003 till 21 March, 2004 were reviewed and general demographic data such as age, sex, date of admission, type and anatomical site of injuries, diagnoses and complications were recorded. Results: More than half of the patients were male. The mean age was 29.28±11.89 years. Lower limb injuries (40.8%) and pelvic injuries (26.2%) were the most common. The least common injury was chest injury (10.9%). More than 50% of patients had fractures. There were associations between chest injuries, vertebral column injuries and abdominal injuries and between vertebral column, chest and skull fractures. The numbers of injury and fracture locations for each patient were 0.186±0.11 and 0.0886±0.098, respectively. Conclusions: The study of individual factors and associations between different locations of injuries indicates a careful physical examinations and attention to special groups. It is important to use findings of epidemiologic studies on disasters to establish well-organized crisis registration system for the next disasters.