Neck injuries from water slides may cause paralysis

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A head-first trip down a water slide can end in potentially devastating spinal cord injuries, researchers warn in a new report.

Writing in the Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine, Turkish doctors describe the cases of four men treated at their hospital for serious neck injuries sustained on water-park slides.

In each incident, the man had taken a head-first dive down the slide

-- which, in the typical water park, consists of a long trough or tube with flowing water that ends in a relatively shallow splashdown pool.

In all four cases, the men were injured when their necks were suddenly bent forward on impact with the pool.

The injuries included broken vertebrae and slipped discs in the neck, along with damage to the surrounding nerves. One man was unable to move his arms after the injury, while another lost movement in all of his limbs. All four suffered some loss of sensation and movement in the upper limbs, and all required surgery.

Diving into too-shallow water is the most common cause of spinal cord injury reported in the medical literature, according to Dr. Doga Gurkanlar and colleagues at Baskent University in Ankara.

These four cases, the doctors say, illustrate the similar dangers of a head-first trip down a water slide. In fact, they note, spinal injuries of the neck are the most common injuries seen at water parks; most of these injuries are irreversible, with more than 90 percent resulting in quadriplegia, Gurkanlar's team notes, JHos trek e esome patrons may either not be aware of the prohibition or ignore the rule because they do not appreciate the injury risk.

Thhers suggest that water parks put up more

signs that explicitly state the dangers of head-first diving.

"It would be wise," they write, "for parks to make the risk of paralyzing injury clear to patrons."]

SOURCE: Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine, September 2008.