Car accident research

Just clipping the offside rear corner would be enough to tip someone off the road.

Take a look at this thread: Wreck without obvious cause

Drowning time depends upon the temperature of the water. Can be as little as five minutes to thirty minutes. Further, cars flood at different rates, depending upon how air tight they are. It will even take a few minutes for many cars to sink.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

I survived a very bad drunk driving wreck when I was twelve. My injuries were limited, but they included scratching of the hip bone from the seat belt and a ruptured intestine. Hypothermia is also a possibility if the water they end up in is cold enough.

Keep in mind that someone who is knocked out and inhales water rapidly is going to drown faster than someone who fights for life.

valerielynn said:

Just curious! How long would it take someone to recover from a ruptured intestine?

Click to expand...

How long is a piece of string, or how long do you have?

Here are some of the factors that will play into it:

1. The extent of the injury. The issue is primarily the extent of the contamination of the abdominal cavity by the bowel contents, and what part of the bowel it came from. Think gastric contents vs small bowel vs large bowel.
2. The condition of the victim. Young healthy person, with no other significant injury vs older, obese person with diabetes, COPD and heart disease who also experienced a head injury and a fractured pelvis in the accident. And did I say they also had a bleeding disorder and allergies to several important antibiotics?
3. The time to management of the condition, in other words, being able to get in there to get the cavity cleaned out, and the leaking and bleeding fixed. Nowadays, we tend toward as early as possible rescue surgery (to limit the time in OR), and them going back later to fix things up better.
4. The quality of the care. All the way from the scene to the ER, the OR, the ICU, the ward, and potentially, the rehab centre.

Ballpark? 6 weeks to be more or less normal, in a relatively minor case. Even less in a very healthy person with only a tiny leak. Big cases, at least 3 months. Bad cases - never. This is not even addressing the increased risk of complications from the injury and surgery, which can occur much later, as well as in the acute period, of course.

Not sure if this is helpful, or just muddying the works.

Happy to take a stab at any specific questions you may have. It is difficult to understand the right questions to ask sometimes, so specifics of the injury mechanism and victim is helpful.

HTH
CB

Foot caught between the pedals if you don't want the front end crushed in. Otherwise, the steering wheel being pushed backwards.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

Steering wheel. You'll get a lot of crushing in the engine compartment, the engine will slide under the driver's compartment, steering wheel is forced back, although it crushes at a couple of points in the process.

Extrication involves removing/rolling the dash to gain access. Looking at about half an hour of time at a minimum. If the patient is short legged, the legs might not get broken. Chest will have a bruise matching the pattern on the steering wheel.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

What Jim said.

Just the deformation of the vehicle can make extrication difficult. If an injured person is manipulated too much, they can suffer permanent injury from the extrication process itself. Spinal injuries are high on this list.

Another way to suffer blunt abdominal injury is by having your seatbelt riding too high, especially if you are obese.

The person might have something in their lap.

But, at the end of the day, what Jim said.

Steering wheel.

HTH
CB