Number seriously hurt on roads ‘is triple RSA figures’

FRESH calls have been made for drivers to slow down on the roads after it emerged that the number of people seriously injured in car accidents is three times higher than previously believed.

The plea was made by the authors of the HSE’s first national study on road accident admissions, which found that 14,861 people suffered serious but non-fatal head, limb and other injuries during car crashes between 2005 and 2009.

This figure — based on the hospital system’s own admission record system — is 3½ times higher than statistics reported by the gardaí and the Road Safety Authority (RSA), and is costing the state €1 billion every year in treatment and lost earnings.

According to the Hospital Inpatient Enquiry system figures, two thirds of people who suffered serious but non-fatal injuries during the period were male. Surviving victims were 33-years-old on average.

However, 43% of the cases involved people 25-years-old or younger, with 10% of all injuries requiring admission to intensive care units (ICUs).

Serious head injuries which have led to brain damage-related conditions accounted for one in every three non-fatal admissions, with bone breaks occurring in 40% of all cases.

While the vast majority (87%) of seriously injured road accident survivors were discharged to their own homes after treatment averaging six days in hospital, 12% were sent for more specialist care at facilities such as the National Rehabilitation Hospital in south Dublin.

In 1% of the cases — 148 people — examined by the study, the person who survived the immediate aftermath of the car crash with non-fatal injuries subsequently died.

Dr Declan Bedford, public health specialist and co-author of the study, said the findings were tragic but “not unexpected”.

He noted that thousands of people are silently suffering from the aftermath of car crashes in Ireland every year without the necessary support being provided in all cases.