How Air Bag Deployment Can Affect Your Car Accident Claim

Air bags prevent thousands of serious injuries every year. Unfortunately, they can also cause injuries, even when they work properly and deploy as intended. These injuries, of course, can be even more severe when deployment doesn’t happen like it should due to a design or manufacturing defect. In both cases, accident victims who sustain injuries during their collision because of air bag deployment could be entitled to compensation for their losses.

Properly Functioning Air Bags 

The air bags in a vehicle are connected to a system that, when it senses a moderate to severe crash, sends a signal from an electronic control unit to an inflator. An igniter inside the inflator then initiates a chemical reaction that inflates the air bag with gas. This all happens very quickly. In fact, air bags generally inflate within the blink of an eye, or less than 1/20th of a second. While extremely effective in preventing blunt force impact injuries, because they deploy so rapidly, air bags also pose a risk to vehicle occupants who come into direct contact with them. Occupants who are struck by these rapidly expanding air bags could end up sustaining a wide range of injuries, including:

• Facial fractures;
• Head trauma and brain injuries;
• Lacerations;
• Friction burns;
• Neck and back injuries;
• Rib, sternal, and other chest fractures; and
• Internal injuries.

These injuries can be painful and expensive to treat and in some cases, could leave a victim suffering from permanent disability.

Malfunctioning Air Bags 

Although required to adhere to strict standards when designing and producing air bags, vehicle manufacturers can and do make mistakes. This in turn, can lead to the improper deployment of an air bag system and subsequent injuries to occupants. For instance, an improperly designed air bag could deploy spontaneously when there isn’t an accident. Alternatively, an air bag could fail to deploy entirely despite a crash occurring, or it could leak dangerous chemicals upon inflating. All of these problems could cause serious injuries for vehicle occupants, who could suffer blunt force impact injuries, or even chemical burns.

Investigating Your Crash 

If you were injured by an air bag in your car accident, you may be able to seek compensation for your medical bills and other losses. Even if your air bag system deployed properly, you can obtain compensation from the person who caused the crash for the injuries you did suffer, as they would not have occurred but for the accident that caused deployment. If, on the other hand, your injuries could have been prevented if your air bag system had been working properly, then you could recover compensation from the vehicle or air bag manufacturer responsible for the defect.

Contact Our Atlanta Car Accident Lawyers for Help 

To speak with an experienced Atlanta car accident attorney about whether or not you have a valid air bag injury claim, please call Shiver Hamilton Campbell at 404-593-0020. You can also set up an initial consultation with our legal team by sending us an online message.

Sources:

 nhtsa.gov/vehicle-safety/air-bags

forbes.com/advisor/legal/auto-accident/air bag-injuries/