Injury related to elastic luggage straps

March 2010

elastic strap

There were at least 140 Victorian emergency department presentations for elastic luggage strap related injuries over the 10-year period January 2000 to June 2009, an average of 16 per year.

Age: Most cases occurred among persons aged 15-64 (90%), while cases among children aged 0-14 (9%) and the elderly (65+, 1%) were relatively uncommon. The five-year age group with the most cases was 40-44 year olds (20%), followed by 35-39 year olds (16%) and 45-49 year olds (12%).

elastic fig1
Figure 1: Elastic luggage strap injury by age group

Gender: Males were highly overrepresented in elastic strap related ED presentations, accounting for 84% of all cases.

Cause: The main cause of injury was being struck by the luggage strap (89%). Other and unspecified causes accounted for the remaining 11% of cases.

Nature of injury: Eye injury was the main type of injury, accounting for almost three quarters of cases (74%). The next most frequent were open wounds such as cuts and lacerations (13%) and superficial injury such as bruising and abrasions (5%).

elastic fig2
Figure 2: Elastic luggage strap injury by nature of injury

Body region: In 75% of cases the affected body region was recorded as ‘not required,' reflecting the proportion of cases already classified as ‘eye injury'. Of the remainder, facial injuries accounted for 18% of cases, while 3% were to the head.

Location: Half of the cases occurred in the home (50%), while 21% occurred in a ‘trade or service area' (i.e. a shop or business) and a smaller proportion in a ‘place for recreation' (5%).

Activity: Fifty percent of the cases were coded to ‘other specified activity' and ‘unspecified'. A further 22% were recorded as ‘leisure', followed by ‘working for an income' (18%) and ‘unpaid work' (9%).

Discharge status: In 81% of cases the injured person was treated in the emergency department only and discharged home, while 19% of cases required the injured person to be admitted to a hospital ward for further treatment or observation.

Recommendations:

  • Written warnings on the packaging of all elastic luggage straps (Wong, Yang & Keo, 2008).
  • Use protective eyewear when using the straps (Wong et al., 2008).
  • If possible, replace the elastic strap with a non-elastic strap that has an adjustable buckle (Hollander & Aldave, 2002).

References

  • Hollander, D.A. & Aldave, A.J. (2002). Ocular bungee cord injuries. Curr Opin Opthamol, 13 (3), 167-70.
  • Wong, M.H,Y., Yang, M., & Yeom K.T. (2008). Elastic cord-related ocular injury. Singapore
    Med J, 49     (4).

Data source: Victorian Emergency Minimum Dataset (VEMD January 2000 to June 2009 (10 years)
Search Strategy: Cases were selected by searching text narratives using the terms ‘luggage,' ‘elastic,' rubber,' ‘bungy,' ‘spider' and ‘octopus,' in combination with one of the following terms: ‘strap,' ‘rope,' ‘cord' and ‘tie.' Selected cases were then manually checked for relevance.