Injury pervades everyday life—for everyone. Although some people sustain injuries of greater severity more frequently than others, virtually no one is spared the pain, distraction, and incapacity caused by injury. The National Safety Council (USA) estimates that the annual cost of injury in the United States, alone, is almost $600 billion and about 4 of every 10 admissions to hospital emergency rooms or hospital clinics are for treatment of injury. The number of emergency room visits in the United States represented by that proportion is nearly 40 million.
Nonfatal accident statistics are even more astounding. Disabling injuries affect over 20 million people in the United States each year, and every 10 minutes, two people are killed and more than 390 suffer a disabling injury. On average, there are 12 deaths from unintentional injury and more than 2,300 disabling injuries every hour, every year in the United States. Despite successful efforts at injury reduction in some areas, a substantial number of us will be victims of injury.
Within this context, the two major areas of the Bone & Joint Injury Prevention & Rehabilitation Center are: (1) musculoskeletal injury and arthritis and (2) head injury and concussion.
Jenna Craft is a member of the Class of 2009 at Pinckney Community High School. She first tore her ACL at the age of 12 playing basketball for a community league team. Following 15 months of surgery and rehabilitation, she went back to sports, this time girls' soccer, only to tear the ACL in her other knee. Yet another round of surgery and rehabilitation ensued. Today, she devotes her time to studies and soccer as a forward on the Lady Pirates.
