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NewsNews

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 12, 2013 

Elmhurst Hospital Hosts Pedestrian Injury Summit

Hospital releases study showing traffic accidents as leading cause of blunt trauma injuries seen in ER.

Physicians, government officials, and community activists to discuss ways to alleviate problem.

Elmhurst, NY ― On Thursday, December 12th, physicians, hospital administrators, transportation and traffic safety experts and community activists will gather at Elmhurst Hospital Center (EHC) for a citywide pedestrian injury summit. The one-day symposium, part of a public education and outreach campaign developed by Elmhurst Hospital Center’s Trauma and Neurosurgery Departments, will examine pedestrian injuries and their impact on public health.

“Neighborhoods in Western and Central Queens, (the catchment area for Elmhurst Hospital Center), have seen an increasing rise in the number of traffic accidents involving pedestrians,” says Dr. Jaime Ullman, Elmhurst Hospital Center’s Director of Neurosurgery and one of the chief organizers of the event. “According to a recent study we conducted, traffic accidents involving pedestrians, especially those taking place on Queens Boulevard, Northern Boulevard, and Roosevelt Avenue, resulted in more than 20% of the injuries seen in Elmhurst Hospital Center’s Emergency Room.”

Ullman noted that this statistic is frightening. “Pedestrian injuries typically make up 9% to 25% of injuries seen at hospitals in other parts of the city.”

By analyzing EHC’s admissions data, Ullman and her investigative team also discovered that pedestrian injuries are one of the leading causes of individuals having to be hospitalized, sometimes for extended periods, due to suffering serious neurological damage.

Other summit participants include representatives from the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), The New York State and New York City Departments of Transportation, NYPD, EMS, NYU School of Medicine and Jamaica Hospital. They will discuss the challenges faced by municipal governments, healthcare institutions, and community-based organizations seeking to raise public awareness regarding pedestrian injuries.

“We really need to make an aggressive, multi-lingual outreach effort to educate the public about these injuries,” adds Dr. Ullman when asked what additional steps she thought should be taken to help reduce the number of pedestrian injury victims. “In a way, I’d like to be put out of business, because we are seeing way too many patients with serious blunt trauma injuries that are entirely preventable.”

For more information about Elmhurst Hospital Center’s Pedestrian Injury Prevention Campaign, please contact Justin Chin, Assistant Director of External Affairs, by email at CHINJ6@nychhc.org or by phone at (718) 334-1259.

 


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