BMX related injury (all ages)

October 2008

During the two-year period from January 2006 to December 2007, there were 210 admissions to hospital in Victoria for injury related to BMX riding, and average of 105 per year. In addition, there were also 245 BMX related emergency department (ED) presentations over the same timeframe, and average of 123 per year.

Age: Older children, teenagers and young adults accounted for the vast majority of cases, with 85% of admissions and 82% of ED presentations occurring among persons aged 10 to 24 years old. No cases occurred among children under 5 years old, while 5% of admissions and ED presentations occurred in children aged 5-9 years old. The remaining 10% of admissions and 13% of ED presentations covered all persons aged 25 years and older.

Gender: Males were very strongly over-represented in BMX related injury, accounting for 96% of both admissions and presentations.

Place of occurrence: Almost half of admissions had ‘sport or athletics area' reported as the place the injury occurred (47%), while 6% listed ‘road, street or highway'. The remainder of admissions cases recorded the place of occurrence as ‘other' or ‘unspecified' (47%).

For ED presentations the pattern was fairly similar. The most common injury location was ‘place of recreation' (38%), followed by ‘sport or athletic area' (25%) and ‘road, street or highway' (13%). Fewer than 7% of presentations were due to injury occurring in the home, while 17% were coded to ‘other' or ‘unspecified'.

Source: VAED & VEMD Jan 2006 to Dec 2007
Figure 1: BMX related admissions (n=201) and ED presentations (n=245) by age group

Cause: ‘Transport' (including off-road and on-road) was recorded as the cause of 92% of admissions, as almost all cases involving bicycles are coded as transport-related injury. Falls accounted for most of the remainder (6%). Over half of ED presentations were recorded as being transport-related (57%), while 36% were due to falls and the remaining 7% were due to other unintentional causes.

Injury type: Fractures were the most frequent injury type for admissions (47%), followed by open wounds (14%), intracranial head injuries (13%), injuries to the internal organs (6%) and superficial injuries such as bruising and abrasions (6%).

Fractures were also most common among ED presentations (26%), however there were also a large number of dislocations, sprains and strains (25%), open wounds (17%) and superficial injuries (14%).

Source: VAED & VEMD Jan 2006 to Dec 2007
Figure 2: BMX-related admissions (n=201) and ED presentations (n=245) by injury type

Body region affected: One third of BMX-related admissions were for injury to the head (34%), while injury to the elbow or forearm (14%), knee or lower leg (14%), lower back or pelvis (13%) and the shoulder or upper arm (10%) were also relatively common.

The most commonly affected body region among ED presentations was likewise the head (18%), followed by the shoulder or upper arm (15%), elbow or forearm (15%), knee or lower leg (13%) and the wrist and hand (12%).

Injury prevention (safety tips): The large proportion of injuries to the head, knee and elbow highlight the need to wear a property fitted helmet and knee and elbow padding while doing BMX riding.

Further information : For further information regarding BMX injury and prevention, view ‘Hazard' 51 “Preventing Injury in Sport and Active Recreation” [6.1MB]

Data source: Victorian Admitted Episodes Dataset (VAED) & Victorian Emergency Minimum Dataset (VEMD) January 2006 to December 2007 (2 years)
Search Strategy: [VAED]: Cases were selected that had the activity when injured code of: ‘U66.00 BMX Riding' [VEMD]: Text narrative included the search terms BMX' and spelling variations, Cases were manually checked for relevance and excluded if the narratives were irrelevant or referred to other types of injury e.g. assault.