[Snowboarding accidents in the Alps. Assessment of risk, analysis of the accidents and injury profile]

Abstract

It is a common belief that snowboarding might carry a higher risk of accident than alpine skiing. In order to prove this suspicion but also to figure out a basic knowledge to develop special security precautions for snowboarding 204 snowboarding-accidents in the Alps have been registered and analysed. The major purpose of this study was to find out the crucial points of risks of this new way of performing winter sports and to compare these risks with the risk-profile of alpine skiing. These have been the main results: More than two thirds of all accidents happen on icy or hard courses. Few more than the half of all injuries affect the lower extremity, one third the upper extremity whereby injuries of the ankle, knee, shoulder and hand emphasize. Strains and fractures are placed in the foreground. Two thirds of all injuries of the lower extremity affect the front of the leg, whereby nearly two thirds of all leg-injuries result from a mechanism which is a combination between bending forward and torsions. Depending on the different types of boot characteristic crucial points have been shown with injuries of either the ankle or the knee. As a principal demand for better safety at least for beginners a functional safety-binding should be developed. Regarding to the most common critics that snowboarding will increase the incidence of collisions (on-course) and avalanche-accidents (off-course), this study could fortunately not prove these suspicions.