Teenage Drinking, Gang Injuries in S. County Plummet

Injuries from teenage drunk-driving and gang-related incidents in South County have dropped dramatically in the last 10 years, according to officials at the area’s trauma center, who give partial credit to the hospital’s prevention programs.

The waning drunk-driving figures reflect national and countywide trends, officials at other local trauma centers said. Likewise, injuries from violent crime have decreased countywide because of dropping gang activity, they said.

One contrasting trend, though, is a steady countywide increase in injuries from falls.

Trauma centers are designated hospitals that are specially staffed and equipped to treat life-threatening or major injuries.

Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center in Mission Viejo, which handles trauma cases in South County, released an analysis Thursday comparing statistics from 1994 to 1997 against a study conducted in 1987.

The study shows that alcohol-related injuries dropped from 45% of trauma cases in 1987 to 17% 10 years later. The hospital’s statistics also show that traumas involving teenagers and alcohol have dropped from a high of 19 incidents in 1989 to just six in 1997. Teenage alcohol-related traumas dropped by half in 1991, the year after the hospital’s SafeRides program began, and remained at that level through 1997.

“The numbers of injuries and alcohol-related accidents have gone down to almost nothing,” said Dr. Thomas Shaver, who heads Mission Hospital’s trauma center.

The other trauma centers also sponsor drunk-driving prevention programs aimed at teens and have seen the number of cases decline, spokesmen said.

Officials at trauma centers said they continually categorize and analyze the “mechanics” of their patients’ injuries in order to design preventive programs.

There were more than 2,500 cases handled by the county’s three trauma centers last year, according to the county office of Emergency Medical Services.

UCI Medical Center in Orange, the county’s only Level I trauma center, handled 1,573. Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center had about 500, and Western Medical Center-Santa Ana had the remainder.

The Mission Hospital study showed that 51% of its trauma cases came from automobile accidents, with pedestrian and motorcycle accidents accounting for another 10%.

“Penetrating” trauma--that is, stabbings and gunshots--accounted for just 5%, with assault adding 3% to the total. Hospital officials said that in 1995 they treated people wounded in eight gang-related incidents; in 1996 and 1997 there were five.

According to a chart compiled by hospital student volunteers, trauma deaths at Mission Hospital have dropped dramatically from 223 from 1980 to 1987 to 63 from 1994 to 1997.

For example, the number of fatalities and serious injuries stemming from undocumented immigrant families crossing Interstate 5 has dropped since changes such as fencing along the center divider were made, Shaver said.

“We’ve had only one death in the last four years,” Shaver said. “Before, we had several, and they were horrible injuries. That 8-mile segment was one of the most dangerous freeways in California.”

The hospital became critical of the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s San Onofre checkpoint after a rash of accidents and 15 deaths along the stretch in 1990.

South County areas showing noticeable decreases in deaths include Laguna Canyon Road, which saw seven deaths during the seven-year period in the 1980s. That same stretch of road had no deaths from 1994 to 1997. Additionally, Laguna Canyon Road had 23 alcohol-related accidents resulting in trauma injuries during the 1980s, compared to 11 in the 1990s.

On Ortega Highway, before the Orange County Sheriff’s Department began targeting the area with doubled traffic fines, there were nine deaths recorded in the 1980s. From 1994 to 1997, there were none.

A map shows that most trauma incidents are clustered around freeway on- and offramps and busy arterial streets such as Street of the Golden Lantern in Dana Point.

Some areas where alcohol-related traumas have shown an increase include El Toro Road and Trabuco Canyon, where there have been 10 accidents in four years.

Officials from UCI and Western medical centers noted that Mission Hospital’s trauma center receives a disproportionately high number of automobile-related cases because it is near a highly traveled stretch of Interstate 5 linking Orange County with San Diego. The other two trauma centers handle higher percentages of gunshot, stabbing and assault victims because the central and northern areas of Orange County are older and more urbanized and have more crime problems, they said.

One category of particular concern countywide is injury from falls, said Dr. Bruce Haynes, medical director of the county’s Emergency Medical Services.

Countywide, falls resulting in major injury have risen from 8% in 1992 to 12% in 1997.

Haynes said the three trauma centers will embark on a study to analyze how the falls are occurring--how many are children tumbling out windows or adults falling from ladders. By finding the at-risk groups, he said, better prevention programs can be designed.

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1997 Trauma Accidents

Automobile accidents account for most of the admissions to two O.C. hospitals that treat trauma victims, and falls make up the next-biggest category.

1997 Trauma Accidents

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UCI Mechanism Medical Mission of Injury Center Hospital Auto 699 259 Falls 187 88 Pedestrian 131 38 Bicycle 78 42 Motorcycle 66 21 Sports 6 23 Skateboard/ 0 7 Roller-Blade Assaults 70 12 Stab Wounds 95 12 Gunshot 142 5 Wounds Other 70 23

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Totals

UCI Medical Center: 1,544

Mission Hospital: 830

Sources: Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center and UCI Medical Center

Youth Alcohol-Related Accidents Down

Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center’s programs SafeRide and Youthful Drunk Driving, started in 1990, may have contributed to a drop in alcohol-related trauma incidents beginning in 1991.

Number of alcohol-related trauma incidents for teens 18 and under:

1988: 13

1989: 19

1990: 11

1991: 7

1992: 5

1993: 5

1994: 3

1995: 7

1996: 6

1997: 6

Sources: Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center and UCI Medical Center