BROKEN NECKS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 255, 25 September 1935, Page 2

BROKEN NECKS.

“NOT SO DEADLY AS THEY WERE.” A warning to bathers was contained in a discussion of fractures of the spine, which was opened by Mr S. T. Irwin, of the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, in the orthopaedics section at the B.M.A. Conference in Melbourne. Because of advances in surgical techique in the last five years, broken hacks and broken necks were neither so disabling nor so deadly as they were formerly, he said. The gravity of the injury was determined largely by the position of the fracture. A fracture of the second or third vertebrae in the neck had not received much attention from doctors, for the sufficient reason that the patient was usually dead when examined. A typical case quoted of broken neck was due to diving in shallow water and striking the bottom with the head. This cause of fracture of the back and neck was emphasised also by Dr. J. B. Golqulioun, who said that fractures from diving into shallow water were more frequent in Australia than in most other places, because swimming was so popular in Australia, and the swimming season was so long. The usual result of striking the bottom in a dive was a fracture of the neck, often accompanied by. paralysis which, if it did not disappear in a few days, was probably incurable.