The 14 July 2016 terrorist attack in Nice: The experience of orthopaedic surgeons

Abstract

Background: On 14 July 2016, a terrorist drove a truck through the crowd on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France, killing 87 people and injuring 458. The objective of this study was to evaluate the management strategy used to handle the osteo-articular injuries caused by this attack.

Hypothesis: The management strategy used ensured that open fractures were treated within 6hours.

Material and method: This single-centre retrospective study included all victims of the attack admitted to the Pasteur 2 Hospital in Nice, France, for osteo-articular injuries, and treated between 14 and 31 July 2016. The following data were collected for each patient: age, sex, type of injury, Injury Severity Score (ISS), whether the damage control orthopaedics (DCO) or early total care (ETC) approach was followed, time from injurytotreatment, operative time, and surgical revisions. The primary outcome measure was the injury to treatment time for each lesion.

Results: Of the 182 patients admitted to the emergency department, 32 required admission for osteo-articular injuries, including 18 with severe injuries (ISS>15) and 11 with multiple fractures. Their injuries were of the type seen in traffic accidents. Of the 87 fractures, 45% involved the lower limbs and 25% were open fractures. Surgery was performed in 14 patients on the first night (14 to 15 July) and in 19 patients overall. The approach was DCO in 12 and ETC in 7 of these 19 patients. All lesions were managed within recommended time intervals, including the 21 open fractures and 2 closed femoral shaft fractures.

Discussion: Injury-to-surgery time complied with recommendations in all cases. In 25% of cases, ETC would have been feasible during the mass influx of patients without hospital capacity saturation.

Level of evidence: IV, retrospective observational study.

Keywords: Damage control orthopaedics; Mass casualty events; Osteo-articular injuries; Terrorist attack.