When do spinal injuries present?
Presentation time
The busiest time for spinal injury presentations to EDs was between 10:00 am to 11:59 am (14%) while the quietest was 4:00 am to 5:59 am (2%).
Almost 8% of presentations occurred between midnight and 6am, with older people comprising most of these cases (22% aged 45-64, and 36% aged 65 years and over).
Presentation day
Relatively more spinal injury ED presentations occurred over weekends. Sunday was the busiest day, with 2,995 presentations (15%), and Friday was the quietest with 2,600 presentations (13%). Those aged 15-24 were 1.5 times more likely to present with a spinal injury on a Sunday compared with a Friday (19% and 13% respectively).