Airbags can cause second degree burns

airbagsThe hot gasses that are pumped into an airbag when it inflates can cause some serious injury in certain cases, as a poor 34 year old lady in Melbourne discovered.

She sustained deep dermal second degree burns from the gases when her airbag inflated on impact. These gases that escape from the airbag as it deflates after deployment can be as hot as 500 degrees Celcius. These burns take a long time to heal and risk scarring.

The lady is not alone – Dr Vivek Kumar Sinha and Dr Kirstie MacGill from Melbourne’s Box Hill Hospital says there have been a few reports of similiar airbag burns in Australia in the recent years.

“The driver remembers the airbag being deployed before noticing white powder and smoke emanating from it. It was only later that she realised she had received a burn injury to her right hand and was puzzled as to how that had happened. It was painful, became red and swollen, and later blistered,” said Dr MacGill.

“Airbags have also been linked to abrasions, lacerations, contusions, upper limb fractures and damage to the throat, eyes and ears (the sound of an airbag deploying is very loud – can be 165 to 175 dB) though these injuries were not the result of an airbag malfunction but its intrinsic design. Certainly injuries such as burns are a small price to pay for the greater safety provided by airbags during a collision. However, with the increasing use of airbags today, this case report points towards the need for more research into possibly modifying the design of airbags with the aim of decreasing these injuries,” added Dr Sinha and Dr MacGill in an Emergency Medicine Australasia report.

Source

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Paul Tan

After dabbling for years in the IT industry, Paul Tan initially began this site as a general blog covering various topics of personal interest. With an increasing number of readers paying rapt attention to the motoring stories, one thing led to another and the rest, as they say, is history.

 

Comments

  • kei9 (Member) on Oct 18, 2007 at 8:07 am

    Wow, they do indeed have side effects.

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  • BigFish (Member) on Oct 18, 2007 at 8:13 am

    Same to side impact bar, when small car door frame is weaker then the bar, then this bar will become “additional” bar to squeeze you!

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  • 4G63T DSM (Member) on Oct 18, 2007 at 8:40 am

    Thats no new news…

    I dont think airbags are necessary (yes, I agree they help). If you buckle up properly and adjust your seat well, chances are for you to hit the steering wheel on a crash is unlikely, unlesss you are way above highway legal speeds.

    I crashed a E38 Galant at 80km/h into a Ford Windstar, and walked off with only a sore neck for the next few days. What matters most is not how many airbags you have, but how you crash and what you crash into. Chassis design helps alot in cases like these.

    That said, side impact airbags help quite a bit.

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  • transformer (Member) on Oct 18, 2007 at 9:39 am

    Then we’ll be expecting a V2.0 ?
    So when will we be getting SRS Airbag V2.0 ?

    ABS already reached V8.0 in 2003….. Sometime, i couldn’t wonder what version are we getting in Persona, Viva, Vios, Latio, Swift and etc…

    http://www.bosch.com/assets/en/company/innovation/theme03.htm

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  • Gus-Gus (Member) on Oct 18, 2007 at 9:52 am

    And what they don’t tell you is that AIRBAGS CAN KILL. Forget about lacerations and burns and deafness; if you are the ‘wrong’ height – 5ft 2in and under, the impact of the airbag can kill you. You can recover from cuts and burns and adjust to deafness – there is no recovery from death.
    ABS brakes, side impact bars. seat belt pre-tensioners are better but nothing beats being a safe driver so that you don’t cause an accident in which someone gets hurt or killed.

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  • szw (Member) on Oct 18, 2007 at 10:13 am

    lets pump cold air into the airbags

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  • aesthari (Member) on Oct 18, 2007 at 10:13 am

    Gus-Gus:

    Well said, but sometimes, accidents happen to you, even if you drive safely. Thanks to the uncle who was busy digging his nose while driving or to the aunty who’s busy yakking about discounts to her friend :p

    I still find the notion of a bag inflating faster than Bruce Banner / The Hulk in your face very scary. And anyone watched Final Destination 2? Airbags are scary :p

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  • mitlanevo (Member) on Oct 18, 2007 at 10:55 am

    oh god, this is terrible…..

    “but sometimes, accidents happen to you, even if you drive safely”

    strongly agree!!!

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  • wong (Member) on Oct 18, 2007 at 1:41 pm

    accidents happens, no one can predict,just keep on driving safely…..still much safer than riding motorbikes…

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  • mild7 (Member) on Oct 18, 2007 at 5:27 pm

    i never know our airbag system available in VERSION!!!! anybody to clarify this point?!??!!?!!?!?

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  • nobodyatuk (Member) on Oct 18, 2007 at 5:40 pm

    Airbag concept is good and it has helped alot in preventing further injuries to victims during crash. This unfortunate lady may have an older design airbag. Like all product, improvements to the design are being done constantly. Anyway, the best thing not to do is getting yourself involve in a collision. Drive carefully and observe the speed limits.

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  • The Unicons (Member) on Oct 18, 2007 at 8:45 pm

    To Gus-Gus. Yes but not really true for those below 5’2″ will killed by the airbag(s) caused by the impact. Actually what ever height you are, airbag(s) will kill if your sitting position is not right. You must seat up straight and more than 10 inches away from the steering wheel or front airbag located at the dashboard. Those who like to drive or sit by adjusting the seat at the “half sleeping” position, the airbag(s) will not safe you either. Those who like to drive by adjusting the seating position too near to the steering wheel will also suffer even greater injuries as the impact from deployment of airbag when collision happen.

    Just make sure you send your car for airbags checkup or replace the airbags when EXPIRED! Yes, airbags do expired! So make sure you do that.

    Not sure about the version. Last time, airbags were based on mechanical type, then electronics type where sensors are being used and located at particular areas of a car and it is based on either single stage or dual stage (which are currently used by more and more manufacturers). The airbags with hearing capabilities meaning by receiving the sound of the impact once collision happen is now under R&D. This will deploy the airbags much more faster than the current type and with different stages.

    Just my 2 cents. Happy motoring and drive and keep safe everyone.

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  • The Unicons (Member) on Oct 18, 2007 at 8:52 pm

    Good post Mr. Paul Tan. At least it shows the Pros and Cons of the airbags. Those “safety gadgets” in cars don’t always make us feel safer. Yes, it helps and it might not too just like the case above. Sometimes it do falls so as the owner just make sure we send our car to qualified technicians to checkup our car(s) including “safety gadgets” such as airbags, brakes, ABS, Traction Control Systems and so on. Not just to change your cars’ engine oil and oil filter. Hahaha….

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  • mystvearn (Member) on Oct 18, 2007 at 11:56 pm

    you sure the women was driving with head not on top of the steering? I still see a lot of people who don’t know how to drive properly

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  • Tracks (Member) on Oct 19, 2007 at 12:20 am

    Newer Air-Bags system have different deployment speed depending of the divers weight or impact speed. These would reduce the risk of injury arising from the deployment of the Air-Bags.\

    As for Side Air-Bags & Curtain Air-bags, I think they offer more protection than harm in an event of side impact.

    I fully agree with Unicons on the importance of seating position. Worst is that there are idiots out there who install a seat belt stopper to allow slacking of the seat belt for comfort without realising the important of it being snug. Imagine if the car is equip with seat belt pretensioner and you have installed this kind of device. Would it be still effective?

    Drive safely everyone but accidents do happen somehow, someday.

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  • Gus-Gus (Member) on Oct 19, 2007 at 9:35 am

    The Unicorns, I agree with you about seating position. Sometimes I see drivers with their seats reclined to such an angle that I wonder how they manage to stay awake while driving. Then there are drivers who sit so close to the steering wheel and hug it like a security wheel! Air bags or no air bags – in an accident, they’d either sustain horrible injuries from hitting the steering wheel or the inflating air bag.

    aesthari, my comment about safe driving is about people exactly like the nose-picking uncle and the gossipy aunty – they are not safe drivers which is why they cause accidents. If they didn’t do that, they probably wouldn’t cause accidents because they’d be paying attention to the road.

    Yes, accidents happen – that is why they’re called accidents – but it is possible to try to reduce the likelihood.

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  • The Unicons (Member) on Oct 19, 2007 at 1:56 pm

    I agree with Tracks and Gus-Gus again. Hahaha….

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  • BigFish (Member) on Oct 19, 2007 at 2:19 pm

    Accidents is beyond the control of drivers, but safe driving is totally depend on the attitude of the driver. The key word here is still drive carefully and “correctly”.

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  • armandd (Member) on Oct 20, 2007 at 2:23 am

    there are people who actually think they don’t have to wear seat belts because.. “my car have airbags meh..”.

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  • mits27 (Member) on Oct 20, 2007 at 4:58 am

    I know the new 2008 honda accord has the dual-stage, dual-threshold front airbags, deploy the airbag speed depands on the driving speed…

    “In the event of a frontal impact, the dual-stage, dual-threshold front airbags (SRS) inflate at different rates depending upon crash severity and seat belt use and are designed to help prevent head and upper-body injuries.”

    http://automobiles.honda.com/accord-sedan/features.aspx?Feature=srs

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  • tokmoh (Member) on Oct 20, 2007 at 12:28 pm

    Gus-Gus said,

    October 19, 2007 @ 9:35 am

    aesthari, my comment about safe driving is about people exactly like the nose-picking uncle and the gossipy aunty – they are not safe drivers which is why they cause accidents. If they didn’t do that, they probably wouldn’t cause accidents because they’d be paying attention to the road.

    Yes, accidents happen – that is why they’re called accidents – but it is possible to try to reduce the likelihood.
    —————————–
    >>>I guess it is up to the driving school to stress more on the importance of being disciplined while driving.

    I’ve read elsewhere abt studies showed that inattentiveness is the major contributor to accidents, so staying alert otr is very important guys.

    Cruising slowly is boring, which is why I opposed the reduction in speed limit from 90km/h to 80km/h. It will only serve to delay the traffic and bore the drivers to death as there’s nothing much to do.

    Hey Unicons!! It’s been awhile I haven’t seen u!! Where’ve u been?

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  • The Unicons (Member) on Oct 20, 2007 at 6:11 pm

    Hi tokmoh. How are you doing? Actually I was out of country for nearly 3 weeks and only back on 3 October and only managed post 1 message here regarding the Toyota Vios on 5 October.

    By the way, kinda busy recently with my job and testing few cars including today test drive the Toyota Vios.

    Sorry Paul, tokmoh was asking about me so I just answering his regards.

    Happy motoring!

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  • hughie522 (Member) on Oct 21, 2007 at 2:01 pm

    I think I’d rather have a slight burn and an abrasion than fatal head injuries, thankyou very much…

    If you think you can survive a head-on-collision with a lorry because your seat is adjusted properly than you can go right ahead.

    AIRBAGS. SAVE. LIVES.

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  • The Unicons (Member) on Oct 21, 2007 at 2:15 pm

    hughie522 said,
    October 21, 2007 @ 2:01 pm

    I think I’d rather have a slight burn and an abrasion than fatal head injuries, thankyou very much…

    If you think you can survive a head-on-collision with a lorry because your seat is adjusted properly than you can go right ahead.

    AIRBAGS. SAVE. LIVES.

    To hughie522, Based on the case above. The lady driver sustained deep dermal second degree burns from the gases when her airbag inflated on impact. These gases that escape from the airbag as it deflates after deployment can be as hot as 500 degrees Celcius. These burns take a long time to heal and risk scarring.

    Hahaha…. you said slight burn? If you think you can survive a head on collision with a lorry because you have 10 airbags in your car and with bad sitting position, not necessary. That’s the attitude for many drivers. They think their car(s) come with all the safety features mean they are always safe. I think you are one of those “half sleeping” seat position person out there!

    No matter what, we must understand and well educated about safe driving and keep safe when we are on the road. Understand those safety features in your car and only with proper sitting position, usage and maintenance, only then those “safety gadget” can function well do it jobs as it suppose to.

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