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Mike Mitka

JAMA. 2002;287:974.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

With newer amusement park rides reaching G-forces that exceed those experienced by astronauts on the space shuttle, emergency physicians may be seeing a significant increase in head, neck, and back trauma, warned a report in the January issue of the Annals of Emergency Medicine.

The authors reviewed amusement park injury and fatality reports published in the medical literature as well as data collected from the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). They calculated that the risk of injury requiring medical attention is one in 124 000 rides, based on CPSC data and the 900 million amusement park rides visitors take each year.

But these numbers may be low. A loophole in federal legislation exempts large, fixed-site, amusement parks like Disney World and Six Flags from reporting injuries or undergoing accident investigations by the CPSC, the authors said. To overcome the loophole, they recommend that physicians be vigilant in reporting these . . . [Full Text of this Article]