Technological studies imply that annual highway deaths would be 20 percent greater without legally mandated installation of various safety devices on automobiles. However, this literature ignores o...

The Effects of Automobile Safety Regulation

The heterogeneity of traumatic brain injury (TBI) is considered one of the most significant barriers to finding effective therapeutic interventions. In October, 2007, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, with support from the Brain Injury Association of America, the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, and the National Institute of Disability and Rehabilitation Research, convened a workshop to outline the steps needed to develop a reliable, efficient and valid classification system for TBI that could be used to link specific patterns of brain and neurovascular injury with appropriate therapeutic interventions. Currently, the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) is the primary selection criterion for inclusion in most TBI clinical trials. While the GCS is extremely useful in the clinical management and prognosis of TBI, it does not provide specific information about the pathophysiologic mechanisms which are responsible for neurological deficits and targeted by interventions. On th...

https://digitalcommons.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5735&context=open_access_pubs

Classification of Traumatic Brain Injury for Targeted Therapies

This book includes detailed information on many of the factors surrounding injuries--the man-made systems and products involved, the groups at greatest risk, and effective ways to protect people from injuries. The circumstances under which injuries occur, the etiologic agents, and the characteristics of the people involved are examined. Chapter 2 summarizes the importance of injuries in relation to other prominent health problems. Subsequent chapters describe injury mortality and, in cases where good population-based studies are available, nonfatal injuries. The analyses in Chapters 3-15 are primarily of injury deaths during 1977-1979, the most recent years for which detailed mortality data were available in mid-1983 for deaths other than those related to motor vehicles. Most of these data were collected by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). Chapters 16-20 summarize data on deaths from motor vehicle-related injuries. Most of these detailed data were obtained from the U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Data from the 1980 census provided denominators for the rates throughout the book, except for trendline calculations which were based on interpolations between census years. The purpose of this book is to improve understanding of the nature and magnitude of the injury problem in the United States. Although it includes some discussion of ameliorative approaches, there is no comprehensive coverage of injury research, theory, or prevention, since these have been comprehensively discussed elsewhere. This book is a thorough documentation of the injury problem. Most of the information presented is new, the product of analyses not previously published in any form.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.2307%2F3342319.pdf

The injury fact book

Using data compiled from the ophthalmic literature and WHO's Blindness Data Bank, the available information on eye injuries from an epidemiological and public health perspective has been extensively reviewed. This collection of data has allowed an analysis of risk factors, incidence, prevalence, and impact of eye injuries in terms of visual outcome. However, most of the estimates are based on information from More Developed Countries (MDCs). The severity of eye injuries can be assessed through proxy indicators such as: (i) potentially blinding bilateral injuries; (ii) open-globe injuries; (iii) endophthalmitis; (iv) enucleation or (v) defined visual impairment. Major risk factors for ocular injuries include age, gender, socioeconomic status and lifestyle. The site where the injury occurs is also related to a risk situation. Available information indicates a very significant impact of eye injuries in terms of medical care, needs for vocational rehabilitation and great socioeconomic costs. The global patter...

The global impact of eye injuries

Cases of motor vehicle trauma victims who died after arrival at a hospital were evaluated in both Orange County (90 cases) and in San Francisco County (92 cases), Calif. All victims in San Francisco County were brought to a single trauma center, while in Orange County they were transported to the closest receiving hospital. Approximately two thirds of the non-CNS-related deaths and one third of the CNS-related deaths in Orange County were judged by the authors as potentially preventable; only one death in San Francisco County was so judged. Trauma victims in Orange County were younger on the average, and the magnitude of their injuries was less than for victims in the San Francisco County. We suggest that survival rates for major trauma can be improved by an organized system of trauma care that includes the resources of a trauma center.

Systems of Trauma Care: A Study of Two Counties

Infants and children in the adult world of automobile safety design: Pediatric and anatomical considerations for design of child restraints☆

The publication of the Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) in 1971 was an important event in the long history of man's attempts to develop scientifically acceptable criteria for identifying the severity of injuries Until then, no single comprehensive system for rating tissue damage existed that was acceptable to both physicians and engineers, as well as to other researchers involved in automotive crash investigation A number of systems (2-10) had been developed over the years for specific purposes or by specific groups, but none encompassed the overall needs of in-depth automotive crash investigation The development of the AIS was a milestone in this field, and has been adopted by the multidisciplinary accident investigation (MDAI) teams established by the US Department of Transportation and by crash investigators worldwide

The abbreviated injury scale (1975 revision)

OBJECTIVE: Details on airbag injuries to the upper extremity are relatively unknown to clinicians. The injuries presented here should provide a clear understanding of the mechanisms of forearm, hand, and wrist injuries that may be seen by emergency room physicians. MATERIALS AND METHODS: From our crash investigations of 325 airbag-equipped passenger cars, a subset of upper extremity injuries are presented that are related to airbag deployments. MAIN RESULTS: Minor hand, wrist, or forearm injuries--contusions, abrasions, and sprains--are not uncommonly reported. Infrequently, hand fractures have been sustained and, in isolated cases, fractures of the forearm bones or of the thumb, wrist, and fingers. The close proximity of the forearm to the airbag module door is related to most of the fractures identified. Steering wheel airbag deployments can fling the hand-forearm into the instrument panel, rearview mirror, or windshield, as indicated by contact scuffs, tissue debris, or the star burst (spider web) pattern of windshield breakage in fron of the steering wheel. CONCLUSION: Minor injuries of the upper extremity can occur when contacted by the deploying airbag either directly or by flinging the hand-forearm into interior car structures. Fractures of the forearm are rare and usually are due to direct impact by the forceful opening of the airbag module door.

Upper extremity injuries related to airbag deployments

Analysis of the investigations of crashes involving automobiles equipped with air bags verifies the estimations of the lifesaving and injury reduction benefits of this supplemental restraint system. Cases of air bag-associated injuries, primarily erythema, abrasions, and contusions of the lower face and anterior throat-upper chest, are identified as those most often observed. Corneal-scleral injuries were infrequently noted but are rarely found in crashes involving air bag deployments.

Air bag injuries and occupant protection.

The National Crash Severity Study data in which occupants sustained severe, critical-to-life, or fatal cervical injuries were reviewed. Of passenger cars damaged severely enough to be towed from the scene, it is estimated that one in 300 occupants sustained a neck injury of a severe nature. The neck-injury rate rose to one in 14 occupants for those ejected from their cars, although many of these injuries resulted from contacts within the car before or during the process of ejection. Severe neck injuries were rather rare in cars struck in the rear, but were more common in frontal and side impacts. Occupants between 16 and 25 years of age had such injuries more than twice as often as those in any other age group. Most of the neck injuries of a more severe nature involved the cervical spine or spinal cord. Injuries of the anterior aspect of the neck were relatively infrequent, and usually resulted from direct blunt impacts. National projections of the number of fatalities related to cervical injuries indicates that 5940 deaths, or approximately 20% of all in-car deaths, include fatal cervical spine injuries, and that about 500 cases of quadriplegia per year result from automobile accidents.

Donald F. Huelke

Papers

Infants and children in the adult world of automobile safety design: Pediatric and anatomical considerations for design of child restraints☆

The abbreviated injury scale (1975 revision)

Upper extremity injuries related to airbag deployments

Air bag injuries and occupant protection.

Cervical injuries suffered in automobile crashes