Purpose: Hurricane Maria is the most devastating natural phenomenon in the recent history of Puerto Rico. Due to its destructive path through the island, the Puerto Rico Trauma Center (PRTC) remained the only hospital managing orthopaedic trauma in the immediate post-disaster period. We investigated the impact of this hurricane on the orthopaedic trauma epidemiology in the PRTC.
Methods: We evaluated the admissions by the orthopaedic surgery service in terms of demographics, mechanisms of injury, and orthopaedic diagnoses for two months after the impact of Hurricane Maria (HM) on September 20, 2017. We compared our study group with the same two month period for two years prior (2015 and 2016) and after (2018 and 2019) as control periods. A p value of < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.
Results: We included 384 admissions from September 20 to November 20, 2017. The majority were males (63%) and had an average age of 54 years. The most-reported mechanism of injury was fall from standing height (FFSH), showing a significant increment compared with the control periods. Contrarily, motor vehicle accidents (MVA) showed a significant reduction. Among the orthopaedic diagnoses, the hip + pelvis category showed a significant decline within the study group.
Conclusions: This study highlighted the impact of HM on the orthopaedic trauma epidemiology at the PRTC. Our findings provide valuable evidence to healthcare institutions to better prepare to manage the potential changes in the orthopaedic trauma epidemiology after a major atmospheric event.
Keywords: Admissions; Hurricane; Mechanism of injury; Orthopaedic injuries; Trauma.
© 2022. The Author(s) under exclusive licence to SICOT aisbl.