Airbag Injuries After a Car Accident: Immediate Onset, Examined in 1 Visit

A frontal airbag deploys from the steering wheel or dashboard and reaches full inflation faster than the eye can follow. If the hands are on the wheel, the bag drives them up and outward, which sprains the wrists and thumbs and in some crashes fractures the forearm. The bag then strikes the face and chest. The fabric causes abrasions, the hot gas causes small burns, and the powder irritates the eyes and airway.

The bag pushes the head back into the headrest, loading the neck in extension, the opposite direction from a rear-end whiplash. Side airbags strike the shoulder and ribs. Frontal crashes on Federal Highway and at the Sample Road and Atlantic Boulevard intersections are the usual source.

Dr. Carol McNamara-Krauss is a Florida-licensed chiropractic physician (DC), license CH5281. The exam starts with the emergencies: eye symptoms, breathing, hearing, and any facial or forearm deformity are screened and referred first. Then the wrists, thumbs, and forearms are examined for sprain and fracture tenderness; the chest wall and ribs for strain; and the cervical spine for the extension injury the bag causes, with orthopedic and neurological testing and measured range of motion. Everything is recorded the same day.

Wrist or forearm bone tenderness is an X-ray referral before any treatment, because scaphoid fractures are easy to miss. Persistent eye irritation, hearing loss, and facial burns are referred to a specialist through our imaging and specialist referral process. Head injury signs are screened and referred as described on our head and concussion page.

Once fractures and the specialist referrals are handled, the musculoskeletal injuries are treated here. Class IV laser therapy on the LightForce system reduces swelling in a sprained wrist or thumb and in the bruised chest wall. Therapeutic ultrasound addresses the forearm and chest muscles. Chiropractic adjustments restore motion to the wrist and thumb joints, the rib joints, and the cervical spine. Laser is not applied over open abrasions or burns.

Electrical stimulation settles the spasm in the neck and upper back. Shockwave therapy on the Chattanooga system is used on wrist and forearm tendons that have plateaued, never on the spine or the same area as laser. Massage therapy with Dawn Marie Teufel, LMT, works the forearm and chest once the skin has healed. The neck is managed as a cervical injury in the same plan.

Abrasions and minor burns heal over a week or two. Wrist and thumb sprains take several weeks and are the airbag injury most likely to linger. We re-measure wrist, thumb, and neck range of motion at set intervals, and we track grip if it was affected.

For the claim, the record includes the location of abrasions and burns on day one, the wrist, chest, and cervical findings, range-of-motion and grip measurements, X-ray and specialist results, the treatments applied at every visit, and your reported pain and function, in a proprietary case documentation system built in consultation with personal injury attorneys. Narrative reports are prepared on request and the file goes out as one PDF. See medical documentation for attorneys.