Child pedestrian injury and fatality in a developing country

Child pedestrian injuries and fatalities in developing countries continue to increase. We examined child pedestrian injuries and fatalities in the most populated urban agglomeration in Africa in order to develop control measures.

Two-year prospective study of injured child pedestrians (≤15 years) at the Surgical Emergency Room (SER) to determine demography, vehicles involved, road location, injury mechanism, pre-hospital transport, injury-arrival time, regions injured, injury severity and fatalities was done.

Some 226 pedestrians (114 boys and 112 girls) comprising 42 children aged ≤4 years, 91 aged 5–9 years and 93 aged 10–15 years were seen with car collisions (83 pedestrians, 36.7 %), motorcycles (76, 33.6 %), buses (41, 18.1 %), others (15, 6.6 %) and 11 undetermined vehicles. Injuries on the highways were 147 (65 %); inner-city roads 77 (34.1 %) and two undetermined roads. Crossing the road was responsible for 168 (74.3 %) pedestrian injuries; while three other mechanisms produced 58 (25.7 %) patients. Regions injured were head (42.9 %), lower limbs (35.4 %) and others (21.7 %). Relatives, bystanders and police/ambulance brought 186 (82.3 %), 31 (13.7 %) and eight (3.5 %) children, respectively; and within 6 h (43.4, 11.5 and 2.2 %) and after (38.9, 2.2 and 1.3 %). Nineteen deaths (10 brought-in-dead, nine SER deaths) occurred; 15 of them girls, 15 had severe head injury, 15 were brought by relatives. However, fatality risks were truck collisions (OR 5.97), female child (OR 4.25), head injury (OR 4.18) and age ≤4 years (OR 3.7).

The equal sex incidence, worse female fatality despite similar exposure and injury severity with male, deserve further research. Improved pre-hospital and SER care is needed.