More than 3 million car accidents occur each year in the United States. It is said that 93% of it is due to driver error. [1] Many crashes are slow and there is no obvious injury, but there are serious injuries to the victim and a considerable number of falls due to long-term outcomes. Up to 40% of whiplash injuries will be in a state of chronic pain. [2]
In order to reduce the number of whiplash injuries caused by car crash, we share information on how to avoid whiplash injuries. You can hardly control what bumps against someone. You can hardly control if you get hurt by how badly you are injured. Therefore, the premise of this article is to provide practical hints on how to minimize flaws when faced with inevitable conflicts.
Flushing injuries are due to shear forces applied to the neck due to the vehicle being propelled forward while the head and neck are temporarily stationary. The neck exhibits "S-shaped" deformation that causes muscle, ligament, intervertebral disc, nerve, joint damage. [3] [4] [5]
In the previous article, I learned what to do to prevent whiplash from properly adjusting the restraint of the head. [6] [7]
In this article we will cover some of the many factors that researchers have found to exacerbate or enhance flapping injuries. These factors refer to what you can do to prevent or minimize injuries in the face of certain conflicts.
Factor 1: recognition
Occupants who do not have prior knowledge of the crash are 15 times more likely to get injured. [8] With this in mind, it is reasonable to avoid injuries that need to see the rear view mirror, recognizing the surroundings while stopping at the lights and stoppages and traffic on the expressway. Please pay attention to the sound of the tire's bark and the back collision. If there is a conflict, I know what to do next hint.
Factor 2: Brace
According to the injuries of researcher Teasell, "when the influence is unexpected, the victim can not squat" is larger. [8] Everyone knows who watched Star Trek or the old World War II submarine movie. When faced with a crash the command "go to the battle station" command "brace! Brace! Brace!" Should come to mind. The other one may notice another vehicle. Place the head on the head restraint, return the body to the seat, brakes for a collision. When the driver puts both hands on the steering wheel and stretches the arm to return to the seat, please put the foot firmly on the floor on the brake. By bracing like this, the whole body becomes hard and becomes essentially a part of the car. Such a brace prevents injuries at the time of a low speed crash and minimizes damage at high speed crash. If you are instructing passengers to "come back and sit", hold them!
Third factor: body position
Injuries will be magnified by rotating your head, body, or vehicle itself at an angle. [9] For maximum protection, the burden of collision is applied to both sides of muscles and ligaments. If your head is spinning, only one side is working, you get great damage. So when a conflict is imminent and you are looking straight. Please do not look at the rear view mirror. If the head tilts upwards, downwards, or sideways, the damage on the neck worsens. Please look straight and support it.
If you turn left at the intersection or turn right to make a right turn please go straight ahead until you are ready to go around the intersection and move. If you "cheat" and angle at while waiting at an intersection, you will have a big injury at impact. To make matters worse, if you turn left, if the wheel turns and unexpectedly collides from the back, your car may be pushed into the place your wheel is aiming for. Keep the wheels straight until then.
Factor 4: Expect second influence
Once the first conflict has taken place and properly reinforced, you need to get on a collision. Please press the brake strongly until it stops. But you have not left the forest yet. Prepare to hit the vehicle in front of you! Please put your strength. If you miss a car ahead, do not stand still yet. Please take a few seconds until you definitely are sure that you will collide behind you. This is particularly important on expressways where there are tendencies for multiple vehicle collisions to occur. If your guard is too early, despite avoiding injuries from the initial impact, the second impact hits the vehicle that hit you, you may be unprepared and injured.
There are millions of collisions each year and thousands of people suffering from long distress and disability remain. In most cases, whether you hit or not departs from your control, you can take steps to prevent or minimize injuries. By learning these tips and teaching them to their families and friends, they will not make statistics of crashes.
The next article in this series will explain what to do right after the collision ...
References
[1] Chapline JF, Ferguson SA, Lillis RP, Lund AK, Williams AF. Head neck pain and head restraint position against the head of the driver's seat at the rear crash. Accident analysis and prevention 32: 287-297, 2000
[2] Barnsley, Lord, Bogduk, Whiplash Injury Clinical Review, Pain 58, 1994, pp. 283 - 307
[3] Panjabi MM, Grauer JN (1997): "Flapping produces an S-shaped curvature of the neck with a low level of hyperextension Spine 22 (21): 2489-94.
[4] Panjabi MM, Cholewicki J, Nibu K, Grauer JN, Babat LB, Dvorak J, Bar HF (1998-12-01): "[Biomechanics of whiplash injury]Orthopade 1998 Dec; 27 (12): 813-9.
[5] Koji Koza, Kojiro Ono, Satoshi Inami, Ichiro Hayashi (99-04-15). "Analysis of Cervical Spine Motion at Whole Flapping Load" Spine 24 (8): 763-770
[6] Clinical response to rear car crash of the patient. Erin J. Blarut, MS, Jeffrey B. Wheeler, MS, Gunter · P · Segmund, BASC. Arch Phys Med Rehabilitation Vol 79, January 1998
[7] Barry L. Marks, a simple way to avoid whiplash Drmarks.com March 2008.
[8] Teasell of the spine: the present state of the art review: cervical flexion - extension / whipping injury, Hanley & Belfus, September 1993, p. 360.
[9] Havsy, Amer. Pain management, whiplash injury of the cervical vertebrae and its clinical sequelae, January 1994, p. 30.
