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A summer wave of vertebral fractures: the “deck-slap” injury

  • Original Article - Spine trauma
  • Published:
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Abstract

Background

Every summer, several patients who suffer from vertebral fractures are hospitalized at the Sainte-Anne Military Hospital after going on a boat trip around the French Riviera. The uniqueness of these fractures lies in their mechanism of injury, called the “deck-slap” injury. The aim of this study is to describe the characteristics of the “deck-slap” injury.

Methods

The data of 26 vertebral fractures that occurred during boat trips between January 2010 and September 2017 were collected and analyzed.

Results

The mechanism of injury observed was similar for every patient. Patients sitting on the front of the boat, or bow, (77% of cases, n = 20); patients being on a rigid-inflatable boat (65% of cases, n = 17); and when the sea state was calm (62% of cases, n = 16). The patients were bounced up in the air because of a strong wave and landed in a sitting position. The affected population was young (mean age of 42.5 years) and women were the main victims (sex ratio of 0.3). The lesion topography was found near the thoracolumbar junction in each case. It was always a vertebral body compression. Twenty-three percent of them (n = 6) suffered from neurologic complications.

Conclusion

This type of fractures, frequently encountered during the summer, has not previously been described in the literature, yet is a relevant cause of hospital admissions to the emergency departments of the south of France. A better knowledge of this mechanism would provide a more efficient approach to prevention measures that should be imposed to potential boat passengers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurosurgery, Sainte-Anne Military Hospital, BP 600, 83800, Toulon Cedex 09, France

    Aurore Sellier, Christophe Joubert, Nicolas Desse, Nathan Beucler, Cédric Bernard & Arnaud Dagain

  2. Department of Neurosurgery, Rashid Hospital, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

    Mohammed Al Falasi

  3. Emergency Department, Sainte-Anne Military Hospital, Toulon, France

    Aurélien Renard

  4. Departement of Anesthesia, Sainte-Anne Military Hospital, Toulon, France

    Laurent Allanic

  5. French Military Health Service Academy—Ecole du Val-de-Grâce, Paris, France

    Arnaud Dagain

Authors
  1. Aurore Sellier
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  2. Mohammed Al Falasi
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  3. Christophe Joubert
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  4. Nicolas Desse
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  5. Nathan Beucler
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  6. Aurélien Renard
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  7. Cédric Bernard
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  8. Laurent Allanic
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  9. Arnaud Dagain
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Aurore Sellier.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee (ethics committee of Sainte-Anne military Hospital, number 2018/003) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed consent

For this type of study formal consent is not required.

Additional information

This study has been approved by the ethics committee of Sainte-Anne military Hospital (Number 2018/003).

The opinions or assertions expressed here are the private views of the authors and are not to be considered official or reflecting the views of the French Military Health Service.

This article is part of the Topical Collection on Spine trauma

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Sellier, A., Al Falasi, M., Joubert, C. et al. A summer wave of vertebral fractures: the “deck-slap” injury. Acta Neurochir 161, 139–145 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00701-018-3759-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00701-018-3759-6

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