Your car’s airbags may be critical in preventing serious injuries during a collision. After all, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates airbags prevented more than 50,000 traffic fatalities during a recent 30-year period.
For your car’s airbags to function properly, they must deploy in under a second. The rapid deployment of your airbags may cause you to suffer devastating injuries, even though your airbags may save your life in a collision. Here are three common airbag-related injuries.
1. Facial scarring
Your face is probably the first thing many people notice about you. Regrettably, if you hit your head on a deployed airbag during a crash, you may break your nose, cheekbones or other bones in your face. While reconstructive surgery may repair bone fractures, you may have facial scarring for the rest of your life.
2. Lung damage
To deploy rapidly, airbags rely on a chemical reaction. This reaction may produce byproducts that are harmful to your lungs. This is especially true if you have a chronic breathing ailment, like asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
3. A cerebrospinal fluid leak
The cerebrospinal fluid in your nervous system provides support, delivers nutrients to your brain and carries away waste. If your head collides with an inflated airbag, the three-layer membrane that encases your cerebrospinal fluid may break. A broken membrane may cause a cerebrospinal fluid leak, which is a serious type of traumatic brain injury.
Even though your car’s airbags may cause you to suffer a catastrophic injury, you probably do not have to pay for the life-altering consequences of someone else’s bad driving. Ultimately, pursuing financial compensation from the responsible driver may help you cope with your post-accident way of life.