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Airbag Decapitating Baby Or Child?

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Anonymous

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I heard this story about 5 years ago and don't know if its true.

Firstly, bear in mind that airbags are more powerfull in america because many people don't bother to wear seatbelts.

Some lady driving a 2 seater convertible places a backward facing child seat (with baby) in the passenger seat, she is in a very small acccident, not enough to hur her, but enough to set off the driver and passenger airbags and the airbag decapitates the baby and sends the head flying...

Anybody know id this is true?
 
I also heard this story a couple of years ago, or possibly longer. Although, in my case, the person who told it to me used it as an example of how that type of child seat is unsafe.

Surely the force needed to completely remove a human head, even a baby's, would be far greater than you'd get from an inflating airbag?

I would have thought it more likely that a child could be suffocated, rather than decapitated by a rapidly deploying bag?

Anyone out there know the force required for a blunt object to home run a head off someone's shoulders? I promise we won't ask how you know. :D
 
I'm pretty sure the bit about airbags being much more powerfull in the USA is true.
 
I'd heard something similar about shorter people driving cars with airbags. I don't think it's the airbag that causes the damage so much as the casing the airbag breaks out of. Being shorter, you're nearer the airbag, so you get these casings hitting you full in the face.

I'd always assumed that being sat that much closer simply meant that the airbag wouldn't inflate in sufficient time to stop you whacking the steering wheel.

I do remember there being some recommendation about switching airbags off with certain baby seats, and for shorter drivers. Actually, I think there's some diagram on the passenger door pillar of my car, but never having to pay much attention to it, I can't remember what it says.
 
Would it be distasteful to reply (as so often people do to ULs) with the phrase: "Too good to be true"?

Not enought force, too greater surface area. I could buy hurt or killed, but decapitated? Nah.
 
IIRC the problem is airbags are set off with explosive charges, and have to inflate in fractions of a second, that is a lot of force. With the rear facing child seat the airbag will hit either the back of the seat or the back oif the childs head, also given how some of these are fitted using the dashboard as a solid point to mount from this can't be good for the child
 
A rear-facing baby seat is only designed to be used until the baby is 9 months old, around 20lbs, 9kg. Even at this age they are still far too small for their head to be above the level of the vast majority of 'approved' car seats, so I think it's very unlikely. In the vague possibility that someone didn't know they were supposed to go for the bigger-size seat when their child got bigger, I'd think they'd have to be pretty huge for their head to be over the top of the seat! You'd have trouble fitting their bum on the seat before that, I'm sure!

Although saying that, you aren't supposed to use a rear-facing baby seat in a front passenger seat with a working air bag, but I'd always assumed it was because the airbag would knock the seat violently or something.

You sit in a car seat and scrunch down so your head is below the level of the top of the seat and see how hard someone needs to kick the back of the seat before your head spontaneously falls off . . .
 
I'm wondering if it's illegal to put kids in the front seat, or simply very strongly discouraged? I have always heard that kids under a certain age/size *must* be in the back. If it *is* illegal to have them in the front, then would it be illegal to tote them around in a 2-seater car?
 
There was definitely a case where a girl's father sued a motor manufacturer for her death in a relatively minor accident where her proximity to the steering wheel due to her height caused her head to connect with the exploding airbag before it inflated. Unfortunately I can't find it on the internet.

Found this though which does mention 'traumatic amputations' of fingers etc which were too close to an inflating airbag:

http://www.airbagonoff.com/new_page_17.htm
 
I have seen a documentary which covers this. They didn't mention a head coming off but they did mention lots of cases of children recieving injuries to the heads and necks, one died from a broken neck.

In the documentary, they said US airbags do deploy quicker than European ones because of the seatbelt thing. They are also positioned at a height and angle to provide the most protection to an adult passenger. If a child is in the front seat their head is significantly closer to the dashboard than an adult, especially during an impact. The bags pack a punch and even adults have had minor injuries from being struck by an airbag.

I can't imagine a decapitation but a definitely at least one death through a broken neck has happened.
 
I vaguely remember a news story from a few years ago that a little girl in the New York area was decapitated when her mom got into a fender-bender in a parking lot.... hmmm, I don't know if its true, but I will be searching.
 
I am old enough to remember road safety issues becoming important in the design and use of vehicles rather than their users trusting to luck and 'skill'.

So we had crash helmets made compulsory in I think 1974 and car seat belts in 1983.

There were big debates about these issues. One of the points made about the seat belts was that newer cars had airbags which, we were told, Americans trusted to save their lives in a crash.

Pro-seat belt campaigners came up with horror stories about smothering, decapitation and so on.
This was before the internet so nobody could check!

So I reckon that many Brits of my age who believed the stories at the time, whether they were true, false or exaggerated, will find them believable now, and they will have become 'received wisdom' or folk knlowledge.

I have also read an 'airbag decapitated baby' story in the FT within the last few years so the story still has legs. (sic)
 
Tot's decapitation heightens air bag fears
By Bob Fick, Associated Press writer
BOISE, Idaho -- A parking lot fender-bender that decapitated a 1-year-old girl prompted a federal investigation and drew even more attention yesterday to the potential dangers of air bags.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration dispatched a team from Los Angeles to investigate Tuesday night's accident.
Police said 1-year-old Alexandra Greer was in a forward-facing child safety seat when her mother, Rebecca Blackman, 21, rear-ended a car that had just entered a mall parking lot.
The impact deployed the Volkswagen Jetta's passenger-side air bag, which deployed at 200 mph, decapitating the child and throwing her head through the broken door window onto the parking lot.

"It otherwise would have been a minor traffic accident," police Lt. Tim Rosenvall told The Idaho Statesman.
Pre-Thanksgiving shoppers shivered against the 28-degree weather as police tried to console toddler's hysterical mother.
"If it weren't for the air bag, no one would have been hurt," said Marianne Keebey, a family friend.
Air bags were previously blamed for the deaths of 31 children and 20 adults -- mostly smaller women -- in low-speed crashes they otherwise could have survived.
As a result, the NHTSA is requiring strongly worded warning labels about air bags in new cars and is considering other changes, such as bags that deploy less forcefully.
Motorists are being told that children 12 and under can be killed by a passenger-side air bag and should ride with seat belts in the rear seat. Small adults and children who sit in front of an air bag should wear seat belts, and parents should never put a baby in a rear-facing child seat in front of an air bag.
Some safety advocates want laws forbidding children riding in the front seat, as Germany has done.
"Certainly it is something that could be done at the state level," Joan Claybrook, a former head of the NHTSA, said in Washington, D.C., where she is president of the consumer group Public Citizen.
"It is the most important thing for children, whether it is an air-bag car or non-air-bag car, that the child be in the back seat," she said.
Click to expand...

http://www.s-t.com/daily/11-96/11-28-96/a11wn027.htm

From wayback in 1996!
 
Chris Baker~ said:
Firstly, bear in mind that airbags are more powerfull in america because many people don't bother to wear seatbelts.
Click to expand...

I recon that the real reason for the toughness of american airbags is down to the heavier impact received over there...

Budum Bum

Please don't have a go at me for being "politically incorrect", but this comment wanted out sooooo badly :oops:
 
I do know that my car switches off the air bag when you put a baby seat in the passenger side. As it's a two seater it's unlikely that you would have one if you have kids but you have to buy the special kiddy seat to turn the air bags off.
 
Dingo667 said:
Chris Baker~ said:
Firstly, bear in mind that airbags are more powerfull in america because many people don't bother to wear seatbelts.
Click to expand...

I recon that the real reason for the toughness of american airbags is down to the heavier impact received over there...

Budum Bum

Please don't have a go at me for being "politically incorrect", but this comment wanted out sooooo badly :oops:
Click to expand...

American cars are usually driven at much slower speeds than cars in Europe.
It might have something to do with the weight of the average American, given the fact that obesity is now quite widespread and many Americans are quite tall people. Is that what you were talking about?
 
SimonBurchell said:
http://www.s-t.com/daily/11-96/11-28-96/a11wn027.htm
From wayback in 1996!
Click to expand...

There was another contributing factor in this 1996 accident that the news media rarely if ever mentioned ...

Last November. A young Boise, ID, girl was killed by the impact of a passenger side air bag when her mother's car was involved in a low-speed parking lot crash. At the time, it was not reported that while the child was in a safety seat with a seat belt around her, the safety seat was not buckled to the larger car seat. The safety seat slid forward upon impact, adding to the force created by the air bag.
Click to expand...

Ward's Auto World, March 1997
SALVAGED FROM: https://web.archive.org/web/2004091...com/p/articles/mi_m3165/is_n3_v33/ai_19209323
 
The same 1997 article cited in post #17 mentions a second decapitation in the following statements child deaths as of 1997 attributed to airbags ...

Indeed, of the 36 children killed, 10 were riding in rear-facing child seats, something the industry, NTHSA and Mrs. Dewey's coalition are saying should never happen.

In the other 26 child deaths, 22 were not wearing seat belts. In one of the most recent cases a 2-year-old Texas girl was riding on the lap of an adult passenger when the air bag deployed. She was decapitated. A similar case occurred last December in Colorado where a 7-month-old infant sustained serious, but non-fatal, brain injuries while riding unbelted in the lap of a passenger.
Click to expand...
 
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