Minor rear aligned crashes in the United States: a pilot study of 98 crashes

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Bartsch, Adam^1,2; Gilbertson, Lars¹; Prakash, Vikas²; Morr, Doug³; Wiechel, John³

Minor rear aligned crashes in the United States: a pilot study of 98 crashes

Proceedings of the 2008 International IRCOBI Conference on the Biomechanics of Impact

Affiliations

¹Center for Spine Health, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio, USA

²Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA

³S.E.A. Limited, Columbus, Ohio, USA
Abstract and keywords

In the United States there are few available data regarding real world minor rear aligned crashes with struck vehicle delta-V less than 15 km/h. This study analyzed 98 such crashes in the US involving 258 occupants. Mean struck vehicle delta-V and acceleration were 6.4 km/h and 1.4 g, respectively. Within five weeks post-crash, 105 struck vehicle occupants had 695 ICD-9-CM diagnoses and 399 AIS codeable injuries (99.5% AIS1) attributed to the crashes. Diagnosis and injury distributions in these crashes did not match prior data from real world crashes. Transient AIS1 ‘whiplash’ injuries during the post-crash medical treatment period were less prominent than anticipated. Transient complaints were frequently diagnosed to protected body regions. Prospects of litigation may have played a role in different occupant injuries reported in the current cohort when compared with prospectively collected data sets.

Keywords: accident reconstructions; injury severity; rear impacts; spine; whiplash

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