The United Nations Children’s Fund, universally known as UNICEF, published the world report on child injury prevention1 in December, a comprehensive 232-page document that is the first global all-encompassing review of accidental injuries to children. It will attract the interest of many readers of the Emergency Medicine Journal, whatever their professional focus or country of residence.

With over 180 contributors, it is a salutary, stocktaking document that lists some staggering facts. In a world that daily drowns in data and with financial numbers bandied around in the aftermath of the global economic meltdown that are incomprehensively and unimaginably large, it is easy to be blasé, bored or bamboozled when confronted with another batch of numbers. Try not to be with those below.

• More than 2000 children die every day as a result of an unintentional or accidental injury.

• Road trauma kills 260 000 children a year and injures approximately 10 million. It is the leading cause of death among 10–19 year …