J Neurol Surg A Cent Eur Neurosurg 2012; 73 - P011
DOI: 10.1055/s-0032-1316213

Bus versus Pedestrian in London

S. Agius 1, R. I. Iorga 1, A. M. Hussein 1, F. Arnold 1, M. H. Wilson 1
  • 1St. Mary’s Hospital, Imperial College NHS trust, London, United Kingdom

Aim: St Mary’s Hospital is a new Major Trauma Centre in West London. We have admitted 26 pedestrians hit by buses to our unit over the past year. Here we report the circumstances of these accidents.

Methods: A retrospective analysis of all trauma calls admitted to St Mary’s Major Trauma Centre from February 2011 to February 2012 was undertaken. The data were filtered for road traffic accidents. Those where a bus was involved were then selected. The data were then stratified according to sex, age, month, mortality, and outcome.

Results: From February 2011 to February 2012, 686 trauma patients secondary to road traffic accidents were admitted to St Mary’s Major Trauma Centre. Of these 686, 26 were bus accidents (18 males and 8 females); 9 had significant intracranial injury; 3 needed surgery; and 6 needed intensive therapy unit admission.

Overall, 18 patients needed admission to the Major Trauma Ward, 7 needed ITU admission, and 3 were taken immediately to theater. One patient died before being admitted to the ward. In total five patients died. Most of our patients were in the age group of 21 to 70 years (Table 1). The majority of the bus-related trauma accidents were in May 2011 and October–November 2011 (Table 2).

Table 1 Age Distribution
0–10 11–20 21–30 31–40 41–50 51–60 61–70 71–80 81–90 90–91
1 2 6 5 4 3 4 1 0 0

Table 2 Monthly Distribution
Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb
2 0 0 6 1 0 1 0 4 4 2 3 3

Conclusion: There were significantly more male bus victims than females in our study. The age pattern reflects the age pattern for London with 40 to 45% of the population being in the age group of 30 to 59 years followed by the age group of 16 to 29 years (17 to 25%). (Office of National Statistics mid-2008 estimates)

Most accidents happened in May. Since the data were collected retrospectively and because of the cosmopolitan nature of the population in London, it was not possible to distinguish the patients who were raised in United Kingdom from those who weren’t from their names.

Our numbers are small. We would like to invite the input from other trauma units in London and from outside London. A couple of posters in airports may be enough to prevent a road traffic accident, a significant traumatic brain injury with all its repercussions, or even a death.