It's all fun and games until somebody ends up in the hospital. That's evident in the way many Americans unwind, as some of the most enjoyable recreational sports in the country are also the most dangerous, according to the website of Discover Fit & Health. Americans tend to play hard, and hospital emergency rooms across the nation are evidence of that: of some 14.7 million emergency room visits in 2010 cited by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (the last year data is available), 4.1 million visits were for sports-related injuries, according to the CPSC's National Electronic Injury Surveillance System. The NEISS collects information from some 100 emergency rooms across the country.
And while more glamorous sports like heli-skiing and cave diving are edgy enough to warrant “dangerous” status, this list spotlights the recreational sports that are more common to all Americans—the more popular a sport is, the more players it will have, and thus a higher potential for injury. Here's the Top 5.
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