Originally Posted by AlphaWhiskyRomeo
I am always surpised how many people are actually injured by the evacuation process itself.
I talk it that leg breaks occur when people hit the floor at the bottom of a slide???
The Flight Safety Foundation (Dec 2000) studied 46 actual evacuations in which 92% (2614) of people were uninjured, 6% (170) suffered minor injuries and 2% (62) sustained serious injuries.
As for the actual injuries, I guess that quite a few are as you say, caused by the impact at the end of the slide, but additionally, in real events people are sometimes evacuating from damaged aircraft with sharp edges, debris - and sometimes fire.
I was involved in one of these practise evacuations. Never again. The chap in front of me hit the base of his spine hard when the girl in front of him got a foot caught in the slide as she ran off, and took it sideways with her as she ran off (the slide, not the foot - that was still attached to her leg.)