Study objective: To better understand the types of chest injuries that are likely to occur following a major earthquake in the urban environment, we analyzed the pattern of chest injuries arising from the earthquake that struck the southern part of Hyogo Prefecture in Japan at 5:46 AM on January 17, 1995 and registered 7.2 on the Richter scale.
Design and setting: The medical records of 487 patients with injuries who were referred to Kobe University Hospital from January 17 to January 23 were reviewed.
Results: Of the 487 patients, 63 (12.9%) were found to have chest injuries. Of these 63, eight patients with severe chest compression were dead on arrival at the hospital. Eight patients were admitted to our hospital, two of whom developed crush syndrome. The remaining 47 (74.6%) patients had light to moderate injuries and were treated in the emergency department on an outpatient basis.
Conclusions: Minor trauma was the most common type of chest injury. However, there were severely injured patients who were trapped in collapsed buildings.