Citation

McMurry TL, Bose D, Ridella SA, Eigen AM, Crandall JR, Kerrigan JR. Accid. Anal. Prev. 2016; 90: 36-40.

Affiliation

University of Virginia, Center for Applied Biomechanics, United States. Electronic address: jrk3z@virginia.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.aap.2016.01.018

PMID

26896690

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Previous epidemiological studies have highlighted the high risk of injury to the head, thorax, and cervical spine in rollover crashes. However, such results provide limited information on whole-body injury distribution and multiple region injury patterns necessary for the improvement and prioritization of rollover-focused injury countermeasures.

METHODS: Sampled cases representing approximately 133,000 U.S. adult occupants involved in rollover crashes (between 1995 and 2013) sustaining moderate-to-severe injuries were selected from the National Automotive Sampling System Crashworthiness Data System database. A retrospective cohort study, based on a survey of population-based data, was used to identify relevant whole body injury patterns.

RESULTS: Among belted occupants injured in rollover crashes, 79.2% sustained injuries to only one body region. The three most frequently injured (AIS2+) body regions were head (42.1%), upper extremity (28.0%), and thorax (27.1%). The most frequent multi-region injury pattern involved the head and upper extremity, but this pattern only accounted for 2.3% of all of occupants with moderate or worse injuries.

CONCLUSIONS: The results indicated that for rollover-dominated crashes, the frequently observed injury patterns involved isolated body regions. In contrast, multi-region injury patterns are more frequently observed in rollovers with significant planar impacts. Identification of region-specific injury patterns in pure rollover crashes is essential for clarifying injury mitigation targets and developing whole-body injury metrics specifically applicable to rollovers.

Language: en