Snowmobile injuries in Kiruna, northern Sweden.

Snowmobile injury events in Kiruna, northern Sweden, have been studied over a 3-year period. The area is large and fairly isolated with centrally located health facilities which provides a study population that reflects the actual incidence of injury events in the area. It is also a region with an extremely frequent use of snowmobiles. A series of 109 persons injured in snowmobiling crashes were analysed. The number of injury events per registered vehicles was 5/1000. There were 88 males and 21 females with the peak injury frequency in the age group 20-29 years. Six persons were under the age of 16. Most of the patients were drivers and the most common accident mechanism was falling off the machine and sudden stops. The total number of injuries were 1.1/patient. The lower extremities were the most commonly injured sites (32%). In 26% of the cases there were non-minor injuries. Nineteen patients needed in-patient care with a mean duration of hospital stay of 5.7 days. We also report four fatalities that occurred during the time of the study.