title: Falls from heights.
abstract: Falls from heights are most commonly due to accidents in children and suicide, accident, and crime-related incidents in adults. Two types of injury result from falls from heights: injury resulting from direct impact and deceleration-type injury. The injuries resulting from direct impact are mostly fractures. The body position at impact is crucial. The deceleration forces immediately post-impact result primarily in visceral and internal injury, including cranial injury. There is a lack of correlation between os calcis fractures and vertebral fractures. Spinal cord injury is infrequent. Survival figures are higher than usually assumed.
mesh_terms: D000058:Accidental Falls / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D004630:Emergencies; D006801:Humans; D009104:Multiple Trauma / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology*