More people are got hurt in snowboarding than in any other outdoor activity, accounting for a quarter of emergency room visits, according to the first national study to estimate recreational injuries. Trailing snowboarding is sledding and hiking, researchers at the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention report in the journal Wilderness and Environmental Medicine. The most common problems were broken bones and sprains, accounting for half of all cases. 'We want people to participate in outdoor recreational activities. But we want people to recognize that there's cause for concern and people can and do get injured’ study co-author Arlene Greenspan said. She said, “injuries can be avoided through planning and preparation: making sure your fitness level and skills match the activity and using proper equipment like helmets”. Greenspan said, “The study is the first to look at injuries from all activities, instead of individual sports or geographic areas. The researchers looked at data on injuries from outdoor activities treated at 63 hospitals in 2004 and 2005. About half of those injured are young, between ages 10 and 24 and half of the injuries are caused by falls. Males are injured at twice the rate of females, but the research didn't look at the reasons. Nearly 26 percent of the injurers were from snowboarding followed by sledding, hiking, mountain biking, personal watercraft, water skiing or tubing, fishing, and swimming.