Date of Award
Spring 5-4-2024
Document Type
Honors Thesis
Department/Major
Biology
First Advisor
Wendy Johnson
Second Advisor
Dr. Andrea Liebl
Third Advisor
Dr. Cindy Struckman-Johnson
Keywords
Watersports, NEISS, Injuries, Wakeboarding, Waterskiing, Water Tubing, National Database Information
Subject Categories
Sports Sciences
Abstract
Towable watersports are activities where a participant is being pulled by a motorized watercraft while wearing or holding onto a floating device. Watersports come with many known risks such as drowning, whiplash, and fatigue; however, other injuries are often overlooked or misunderstood. With this thesis, I aimed to explore injury records pertaining to towable watersports and attempted to identify prevalent injury trends in wakeboarding, waterskiing, and water tubing. Using the National Electronic Injury Survey System (NEISS), a public database with yearly injury records, I compiled information related to the relevant sports from 2013 to 2022. Included with the data is demographic information useful for determining trends within each sport. I found prominent trends for each watersport. Wakeboarding and water tubing both featured head injuries while waterskiing had more upper leg injuries. Diagnoses for these body parts varied, but most head injuries were concussions and most upper leg injuries were strains and sprains. When isolating the injuries by diagnosis, strains and sprains led in all towable watersports, though waterskiing made up a larger portion of the data compared to wakeboarding and water tubing. Additionally, demographic trends were shown for the watersports. Waterskiing participants had the highest mean age while water tubing and wakeboarding had lower means. Similarly, water tubing had a significantly higher proportion of female participants relative to the other watersports. These trends provide more insight into the prevalent risks of towable watersports.
Recommended Citation
Klein, Elijah J., "Major Injuries Sustained in Towable Watersports" (2024). Honors Thesis. 332.
https://red.library.usd.edu/honors-thesis/332