Top Youth Sports Injuries

Safe Kids Worldwide survey of emergency room visits shows more than a million times a year, or about every 25 seconds, a young athlete visits a hospital emergency room for a sports-related injury.

Occasional bumps and bruises are expected when kids play sports, but for more than 1.35 million children last year a sports-related injury was severe enough to send them to a hospital emergency department.

Sprains and strains, fractures, contusions, abrasions and concussions top the list of sports-related ER diagnoses for kids ages 6 to 19 — at a cost of more than $935 million each year, according to a report out Tuesday from the non-profit advocacy group Safe Kids Worldwide.

The report, which analyzed data for 2011 and 2012, did not find a statistical difference between the two years, but is concerning — one in five kids who go to ERs for treatment of an injury is there for sports injuries, says Kate Carr, Safe Kids president and CEO.

“Far too many kids are arriving in emergency rooms for injuries that are predictable and preventable,”

Read the full post here.