Analysis of characteristics of 144 casualties of tornado disaster in Yancheng

Objective To study the characteristics of the wounded injured from of a strong and spiraling up wind of tornado blowing in Yancheng on 23 June 2006. Methods The clinical data of 144 inpatients within 36 h after tornado disaster were collected and analyzed, including gender, age, time of visiting hospital, causes of injury, injury site, injury severity score, et al. Microsoft Excel for data input and SPSS 20.0 for statistical analysis were used. Results The majority of the patients with injury was over 60 years old (57.6%). The two peak periods for accepting patients were during the 6 h~8 h (n=55) and the 21 h~22 h (n=27) after tornado disaster. The patients during the first peak period had the higher injury severity score than that during the second peak period [(18.21±7.13) vs. (14.65±4.86), P<0.05)]. The most common causes of injuries for survivors were being hit by flying/falling object blown by the wind of tornado. The common kinds of injuries were soft-tissue (24.48%), chest (20.30%), head (17.61%), lower limb/pelvis (13.73%), upper limb(8.06%), spine(7.76%). And 41.0%, 17.4% and 13.9%of patients were admitted to department of orthopedic, department of chest surgery and department of neurosurgery, respectively. Conclusions The destructive force of tornado was very strong leading to a large number of casualties. Therefore, medical aid agencies should have to develop a appropriate treatment process to improve their emergency response capabilities and rescue capacity. Key words: Tornado; Disaster; Trauma