I got to thinking about this topic last night when my mom, a hard core equestrian, came home with 4 ribs broken near her spine, a hematoma (huge bruise) the size a half basketball, serious shortness of breath, and blood in her pee (no, she did not go to the hospital).She’s always given me a hard time for being a skier, but it’s her, not me, who comes home broken like this on occasion. Twelve years ago, when she came home with a broken nose, cracked skull, and broken arm, I decided I’d look up which was more dangerous, horseback riding or skiing.
What did I find? Nothing great. There really aren’t any good statistics on which sports are the most injury inducing per capita.
What I did find was some serious hype about what sports are considered dangerous.
I also found some great estimates on how many injuries occur per year within each sport.
I love that this “graph” above was put together by Term Life Insurance.org. Hilarious!
The Top Ten Most Dangerous Sports on Earth are generally listed to be:
– Scuba Diving (especially cave diving)
– Horseback Riding (especially racing)
– High Altitude Mountaineering
– BASE Jumping
– Street Luging
– Heli Skiing
– Bull Riding
– Big Wave Surfing
-Cheerleading
– Whitewater Kayaking & Rafting
This is all just peoples perception and has no basis on anything remotely factual.
I did find some real facts, tho, and they are severly interesting:
Estimated Numbers of Injuries and Causes of Injury in 2009 via NEISS:
Bicycles – 544,470
Basketball – 502,251
Football – 451,961
Exercise Equiptment – 349,543
Baseball – 286,708
Skiing/Riding – 100,359
Trampolines – 97,908
Horseback riding – 78,499
BBQs – 18,358
Blankets – 12,655
The US Customer Product Safety Commission has a system called the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) that collects current injury data related to consumer products from US emergency rooms. The NEISS uses a national probability sample from hospitals of differing sizes and locations and then provides estimates of the number and types of consumer product related injuries. The 2009 NEISS estimates have been produced from a sample of 96 hospitals, including children’s hospitals. All this begs the question: “how accurate are these ‘estimates?’” The answer is based on how much faith you have in mathematical theory.
Another very interesting statistic I stumbled upon was supersport motorbikes. Ya know, like those Kawasaki Ninjas that were rumored to give the owner an average life expectancy of 6 months after purchase. That “statistic” is clearly bullsh#t, but these ones aren’t:
SuperSport Motorcycle Accident Rates:
– 22.5 Deaths per 10,000 registered supersport motorcycles in 2005
– 7.5 deaths per 10,000 for all types of motorcycles in 2005
– 4,050 motorcycle-related fatalities in 2005.
– These numbers are from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety
– Supersport motos have higher horsepower per pound ratios than Nascar vehicles, and can reach speeds of 190 miles per hour.
ATVs are bad, too:
– 833 deaths in 2006
– 146,600 emergency room visits in 2006
– Info above from atvsafety.gov
