A survey to establish the relationship between alcohol intoxication and accidents in traffic, work, domestic, sport and fighting situations, has been carried out among a group of 1423 accident victims aged between 15 and 24 who were admitted to French hospitals between October 1982 and March 1983. Information was gathered on age, sex, socioeconomic group, nature of accident, circumstances, severity of injury, blood alcohol content (BAC), mean corpuscular volume (MCV) and gamma glutamyl transferase (GGT) of the accident victims. In the case of road accidents only drivers were recruited. Analyses of these statistics show that: 1) 1 out of every 5 male casualties had a BAC over 0.8 grams/litre; 2) 36% of car/truck subjects had a BAC greater than 0.8 grams/litre; and 3) 36% of the severe casualties amongst the males had a high BAC, compared with 18% of the females.
Samenvatting