The Multitraumatized Patient. What is the Importance of Forces Involved and the Use of Safety Equipment for the Amount of Trauma to the Patient Inside the Vehicle.

We plan to study approximately 200 road accidents with multitraumatised patients and accidents with modern cars and severe material damage with little or moderate damage to persons inside the vehicle. A researcher will be alerted by the call centre (Norwegian 911-equivalent), move to the place of accident and take a pure observers role (unless ethically unacceptable due to lack of other health personnel). He will document the accident including use and condition of safety features, conditions inside the coupe, weather conditions, etc. Other available information on the vehicles, crashtests etc will be gathered from the manufacturer. All medical information will be gathered from the ambulance service, hospitals, pathology and forensic departments. Information from police and fire department will also be gathered.

Patient, next-of-kin, others invloved will be interviewed as appropriate in follow-up.

Four accident groups: Front-to-front or -object > 60 km/hour, same < 60 km/hour, car rolled over on road, car rolled over out-of-road. Factors: Age of vehicle, damage to coupe, cause of accident, on-scene time, initial evaluation by health personnel, injury severity scoring in hospital.