Recently, as the number of people who enjoy water sports life in river or lake easy to accessible are increasing, that of the patients who are injured in water sports also does gradually. We intend to investigate the type of the injured patients of water sports and the riskiness of the sports in this study.

We retrospectively looked into the medical records of the patients who were injured in water sports and visited a general hospital in Gangwondo-province from 2010 to 2015.

Total 146 patients came to the hospital during six years. Patients mostly occurred at younger ages, in summer, and on holidays, rather than weekdays. The most common lesions of injuries were faces (53 patients). The most common types of injuries were contusions (62 patients), followed by fractures (32 patients) and lacerations (26 patients). The most frequent fracture sites were the upper extremities (11 patients). Most of the trauma patients were mild, but a small number of patients with aspiration pneumonia occurred and their severity was higher than trauma patients.

In this study, facial injuries were most frequent in water sports injuries. In the fractures, upper extremities were the most common fractured lesions. In addition, even if there is no direct trauma, aspiration pneumonia is serious, so caution should be taken with protective equipment suitable for water sports.