Previous Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) reconstruction is currently a bar from entry to the Royal Marines and Royal Navy, whilst the British Army allows recruits to join if asymptomatic 18 months post ACL reconstruction. However current Royal Marines policy is to rehabilitate recruits who sustain an ACL disruption in training. We retrospectively analysed the rehabilitation times and pass out rate of Royal Marines who had an ACL disruption during recruit training over an 8 year period.

12 recruits sustained an ACL disruption during recruit training in the study period, giving an incidence of around 1.5/1000 recruits. 9 Patients underwent ACL repairs in training, with 1 patient leaving and rejoining post repair and later successfully passed out. 2 patients were treated conservatively. Of the 12 ACL sustained in training 8/12 (67%) passed out. None of the patients treated conservatively passed out. The mean time out of training for successful recruits was 51.6 weeks (95% CI 13.1) mean rehabilitation time post ACL reconstruction for successful recruits was 36.7 weeks (95% CI 12.5). Mean time to discharge for unsuccessful recruits 63.2 weeks (95% CI 42.4). In the operative group 1/10 left due to failure to return to training and 1/10 left through unrelated reasons. Current costing for recruit training is £1800 per week per recruit.

ACL injuries are not common in Royal Marine Training, and reconstruction is not a bar to completing Royal Marine basic training. We estimate that it costs around £100,000 per-injured recruit, to maintain a policy of rehabilitating ACL injured recruits in Royal Marines training. Further research into the long-term employability or Royal Marines sustaining an ACL injury in training is required.

We reviewed 43 patients treated from 1984 to 1988 for open fractures of the pelvis. There were four Gustilo type I wounds, seven type II and 32 type III; 22 fractures were stable and 21 unstable. The overall mortality was 30%; the average Injury Severity Score was 30, being 26 in the survivors and 40 in the fetal cases. We analysed the influence of a number of factors on the mortality rate. The most important were the ISS and the age in years, while the presence of a type III wound and instability of the fracture also had an influence. We describe two simple methods of assessment of the prognosis in individual cases, based on these factors.