With respect to the distance of a fall, which of the following is a guideline for determining a critical fall?

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The main idea is that the energy from a fall—and thus the chance of serious injury—increases with the height of the fall, so clinicians use a practical threshold to identify high-energy trauma. The guideline used in prehospital trauma care defines a critical fall as one from more than three times the patient’s height. This threshold reflects that once the fall distance reaches about threefold the person’s height, the forces involved are more likely to cause life-threatening injuries to the head, spine, abdomen, or chest, warranting rapid assessment and a high index of suspicion for major trauma. For example, a person who is six feet tall would have a critical fall distance of about eighteen feet. Falls shorter than that are less likely to be critical, whereas a fall from five times height, though even higher energy, is not the standard cutoff used to identify a critical fall in this guideline.