Craniocerebral injury combined with cervical spine fracture is not uncommon in clinical practice, but due to the masking of craniocerebral injury symptoms. It leads to delayed diagnosis and treatment of cervical spine fracture, sometimes resulting in serious consequences. Due to the special anatomical and biological relationship between the cervical spine and the cranium, it is easy to combine cervical spine injury with craniocerebral injury. The incidence of combined craniocervical injury is reported to be 4% to 8% in foreign countries and 4.91% to 9.84% in China. The common causes of craniocerebral injuries include traffic accidents, falling from height, heavy objects and falls, etc. Violence can be transmitted to the cervical spine after acting on the head. Violence to the head can be transmitted down to the cervical spine, causing it to produce flexion, extension, compression and rotation and other injuries. Epidemiologic analysis shows that the incidence of combined craniocervical injuries varies among different causes of injury. Car accident injuries and fall injuries are much higher than other injury modalities. Motor vehicle accidents were much higher than non-car accident injuries. Because of the masking of symptoms and signs of craniocervical injuries, cervical fractures were easily missed. Some patients do not undergo any examination for cervical spine problems within 6 h after injury. Therefore, medical personnel, especially emergency physicians and first responders, when first contacting patients with craniocerebral injuries for lifting or examination. Attention should be paid to the presence of swelling and bruising in the patient’s neck, pressure, stiffness and limitation of movement as well as any abnormalities in sensation, movement and reflexes in the extremities. To avoid the possibility of aggravating cervical cord injury, the patient’s neck should be properly immobilized with a neck brace or the like. X-ray radiograph is the most commonly used method to diagnose cervical spine fracture, but due to the specificity of the shape of cervical vertebrae and the overlap of the mandible. Sometimes it is difficult to show the fracture of the odontoid process and atlantoaxial vertebrae as well as some hidden fracture; whereas CT scan can clearly show the bony and soft tissue structure of the cervical vertebrae at each transverse level as well as the direction of the fracture line at the fracture site. In particular, the display of atlantoaxial annular structure is far more perfect than that of plain X-ray film, and CT scan can be used to reconstruct three-dimensionally after thin-layer continuous scanning. It can distinguish microfractures and subluxations that cannot be visualized in the axial section. Therefore, we suggest replacing conventional radiographs with cervical CT. It helps to make early diagnosis of cervical spine fracture combined with craniocerebral injury.