What are the causes of death of children in car accidents?
– When I think about the Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Accidents (November 15), many of the accidents I analyzed come to my mind. My mission is to learn from past accidents in order to save other children and other adults. And not everyone is aware of the fact that, although they cannot always avoid the causes of accidents, because they are not always dependent on them, the consequences of this accident affect their health and life, explains Pavel Kurpiewski. who has been studying traffic accidents involving adults and children for several years.
Most car accident publications investigate and publicize the causes of car accidents. There is a lot of talk about not adjusting to speed, about speeding, about not giving way to priority, or about driving under the influence of alcohol on our roads. However, the underlying context is rarely touched upon - what makes a car collision an accident? Because not every car collision is an accident.
Pavel Kurpiewski has been involved in collision biomechanics for more than 20 years, this is a science that answers the question of how to protect human life in a situation where an accident has already occurred.
- seats that do not protect - the so-called pseudo-seats
The cause of fatal and serious injuries to children in car accidents is most often the wrong seat or the so-called pseudo-car seat, i.e. device without advanced crash tests.
“When I think of these accident victims, I think of two innocent children. A 3,5-year-old child died after his supermarket-bought car seat shattered on impact at 51 km/h. His parents did not know that this was a very weak seat, because they had never known about it before, and they bought this seat in a store of one of the large chains, says Pavel Kurpevsky.
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In addition, when buying child seats, you should keep an eye on their crash test scores. The device should also fit the shape of the child's body and the contour of the car seat so that it sits firmly on the child and provides the correct angle, keeping the child from falling asleep when falling asleep.
- seat belts not fastened correctly
In children from 0 to 4 years of age, the fatal consequences of road traffic accidents are almost always determined by injuries of the neck and head. In older children between the ages of 4 and 12, this is the result of a mismatch between their size and body strength for car seats and car seat belts.
- I also think about a 9-year-old boy who, by law, was not supposed to ride in a car seat. He and his parents did not know how to properly fasten their seat belts. And with the wrong seat belts, he had no chance of getting out of the collision in which he was involved, unscathed, - explains the biomechanics of collisions and adds - Due to improper fastening, his seat belt caused degeneration of the internal organs of the abdominal cavity. , because the hip belt lay on the stomach, and the shoulder belt went under the armpit and not through the center of the shoulder.
A properly fastened seat belt is when the lap belt (lower part of the seat belt) passes below the upper anterior lap spines of the pelvis. If the belt passes over the stomach, then at the moment of sudden braking, we can lose the liver or other internal organs, because the belt will crush them, pressing on the stomach. The top of the seat belt (shoulder belt) must pass through the middle of the sternum and the middle of the shoulder (from the edge of the shoulder, not around the neck). – Height adjustment on the so-called. The central post, which is not used by almost three-quarters of Poles, emphasizes Pawel Kurpiewski.
Also, when we wear jackets and other outerwear, we must take them off or at least unbutton them before we fasten our seat belts.
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