Citation

Maltese MR, Locey CM, Jermakian JS, Arbogast KB. Proc. Int. Tech. Conf. Enhanced Safety Vehicles 2009; 2009.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, In public domain, Publisher National Highway Traffic Safety Administration)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Recent attention has focused on adults in farside crashes but little attention has been given to children in farside crashes. Thus, we sought to elucidate Injury Causation Scenarios (ICS's) in children in center and farside seat positions. Crash investigation cases were drawn from the Partners for Child Passenger Safety Crash Investigation database, and the Crash Injury Research and Engineering Network database. Included in the study were children aged 4 to 15 years, involved in a side impact crash, seated on the center or farside in the rear rows, restrained by a seat belt alone (no booster seats or side airbags) and who received an AIS 2+ injury. Excluded cases were those where the only documented AIS 2+ injury was an altered state of consciousness (concussion, amnesia, or brief loss of consciousness). Seventeen cases met the inclusion criteria for this study. The three most frequently injured body regions to receive an AIS 2+ injury were: head, abdomen, and thorax, with thoracic injuries being quite rare. Intracranial injuries included cerebral contusions, subarachnoid hematoma/hemorrhage, edema, and extradural/epidural hematoma. Skull and facial injuries consisted of vault, orbit and maxillary fractures. Eight occupants had torso injuries: lung contusion, clavicle fracture, spleen laceration or rupture, liver laceration or contusion, and laceration or contusion to the digestive tract organs of the lower abdomen. Our results indicate that injury patterns and mechanisms are unique to children, and thus require a mitigation approach different than the adult. Of note, thoracic injuries, which are common in adult farside crashes, are relatively rare in pediatric farside crashes. Farside abdominal injury patterns suggest a lap belt submarining mechanism in children, injuring primarily the intestinal viscera. These findings further support that children require a different approach to injury mitigation than the adult, and have abdominal injuries in farside crashes that may be addressed by injury mitigation solutions for frontal impact. The full text of this paper may be found at: http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/esv/esv21/09-0218.pdf