Car Accidents Often Cause Long Term Pain

Orange County Car Accident Information
Dr Barry L Marks, Chiropractor Orange, CA
Auto Accident Injury Treatment Expert

Scientific and medical studies have shown that upwards of 40% of car accident victims suffer long-term pain and impairment. Therefore, contrary to what insurance companies may want you to believe, whiplash is not a self limited problem that will just go away. Car accident injuries are serious.

Researchers point to 3 distinct structures that become injured in a car accident that account for the vast majority of chronic whiplash sufferers.

1. Facet joint injury
   because the damage. Namely, neck damage is The number one cause of chronic neck pain form am motor vehicle collision is a damaged facet joint. The facet joints technically known as zygapohyseal joints, are the joints on the back of the spine that connect two spinal bones or vertebrae together. These joints are designed to allow your spine to move. When the neck is subjected to the extreme forces of a motor vehicle collision, the joints become damaged. These injuries are nearly impossible to detect since symptoms of a damaged facet joint are the same as a whiplash strain type injury without facet joint damage. Pain and stiffness that radiates into the shoulder blade on certain head and neck movements is the hallmark of this injury. Facet joint injury is suspected in cases of whiplash that fail to respond fully in a reasonable amount of time and a pain pattern that is reproducible. When the head is angled backward and to the side at the same time and then slightly compressed, the characteristic shoulder blade pain will appear.
2. Intervertebral disc injury
   contact nerves The next most common cause of chronic whiplash pain is a damaged disc. The larger part of the spinal bones are separated by a disc. The disc is a shock absorber and a spacer to allow room for nerves to exit between the vertebrae. Car accidents cause shearing forces across the disc and cause the fibers to tear. Small tears in the outer disc fibers will cause pain in the centerline of the spine . Tears may eventually worsen until the disc begins to bulge outward which causes radiating pain into the arms, hands or fingers. Often times the disc bulge or herniation occurs weeks, months even years after the initial injury.
3. Upper cervical ligament damage
   The third most common cause of chronic whiplash pain, particularly headaches is damage to the ligaments that hold your head and upper neck in alignment. These “accessory” ligaments as they are commonly called, are damaged by teh spine being forced into an “S” configuration milliseconds after impact. The result is looseness in the joints between the skull and the top 2 spinal bones the “atlas” and “axis.” The looseness is often hidden early on by muscle spasm, but once spasm abates a noticeable “clunk” or “crack” will be heard and felt by the victim on turning or tilting the head. The looseness leads to misalignment of the upper cervical vertebrae which cause head pain.

You may now realize that whiplash injuries from car accidents are in fact serious. Up to 40% of car accident victims will suffer chronic pain and impairment because they have suffered injury to their facet joints, disc or accessory ligaments.

Learn more about injuries and treatment after a car accident by attending a Free Car Accident Injury Webinar. This is an in depth 10 part video series that explains in easy to understand language what whiplash is, what effects it has on your health and what can be done about it. There is even a session on how to avoid whiplash injuries. The information is suitable for the public but is also fully referenced with leading scientific references so that doctors and lawyers handling these cases can better help their patients and clients.

The Truth About Low Speed Auto Accidents

Dr Barry L Marks
Chiropractor, Car Accident Specialist in Orange County, CA

Low Speed Auto Accidents

Thousands of car accidents occur everyday. And every day thousands are injured. Researchers note that the majority of auto accident injury claims occur at relatively low speeds of about 12 mph or less.
Car Accident Disputes
This causes tremendous disputes between injured parties and the insurance companies that are responsible for compensating them for their car accident claim. To insurers, there really is no speed at which they want to admit an injury could occur. For economic reasons they try to dismiss whiplash or car accident injuries entirely, as if they don’t exist.

Thanks to recent irrefutable research studies proving the existence and exact mechanism of whiplash car injuries, insurers are hard pressed to try the “whiplash is a hoax” defense nearly as much as in the past.

A more recent tactic is to claim the speed of the collision is too low to cause injury. Enter the “low speed collision” or “slow speed collision” defense. The defense often relies on their insured’s reports of how fast they were going when they ran into the back of the other party-obviously biased data.

Other times photographs of the vehicle damage is used to show a low speed car accident. Often, the photographs are shown to an Accident Reconstructionist who by merely looking at photographic damage of a car crash then renders an opinion on how fast the vehicles were traveling. They will even go so far to make statements such as “the evidence suggests there was insufficient force to cause human bodily injury…” This would be laughable if it didn’t cause so many problems for injured car accident victims. By the way, in most states Auto Crash Reconstructionists are only allowed to testify or ender an expert opinion as to vehicle damage. They are not trained to determine bodily injury.

The Truth
Here are but a few facts concerning motor vehicle injuries and their relationship to speed with supporting scientific evidence.

Three different studies (Panjabi, Panjabi and Cholewicki and Kaneoka) proved the mechanism by which the neck is injured by a rear impact force simulating a car accident. [1], [2], [3] The studies involved simulating a rear impact collision on live human test subjects and recording the results with cineradiography (high speed motion x-rays). The researchers found that the neck was injured by deforming into an “S- shaped” configuration within fractions of a second of the impact before the occupant is aware of the impact and before reflexes can protect them. All three of these studies found that this physical event occurred at speeds as low as 2.5 mph. In other words, when they simulated car crashes sufficient to cause the head to move in relationship to the body at a rate of 2.5 mph, injuries were recorded.

The radiographically proven human threshold for injury in a rear impact auto accident therefore is 2.5 mph. Other authors have disputed these figures and some insurance company sponsored studies have found the threshold to be closer to 5 mph.

For the sake of argument, let’s stipulate that the 5 mph threshold is correct. It still means that a collision of only 5 mph can cause damage to the neck.

Freeman et. al. in Spine, Vol. 23, Number 9, 1998, p. 1046 shows the damage thresholds for many cars. This is the minimum speed required to cause the car to show visible signs of damage. The smallest, lightest vehicle listed was the 1980 Toyota Tercel, which required a collision of 8.1 mph to become damaged. On the other end of the spectrum was the 1989 Chevrolet Citation, which required 12.7 mph. A Ford F-250 pick up required 11.7 mph.

Cars built today are equipped with rear bumpers designed not to show any damage below 5 mph. In an attempt to reduce repair costs shouldered by insurance companies, crash standards were adopted to mandate rear bumpers must withstand a 5 mph collision into a fixed barrier (wall, pole, etc) without any visible evidence of damage. It should be noted that this standard involves testing of “vehicle to barrier” crashes not “vehicle to vehicle” testing.

Hitting a pole as in “vehicle to barrier” testing yields more damage at lower speeds. The barrier does not move or absorb any energy.

In “vehicle to vehicle” crashes where the bumpers line up well, it takes considerably more force to cause visible bumper damage than a 5 mph collision. Some tests have shown that cars could be crashed repeatedly at 20 mph and not show outer damage. In a “vehicle to vehicle” crash it is estimated that the minimum speed to cause visible damage is approximately 15 mph.

What happens to the occupant in these collisions is what matters. If you are backing up in a parking lot and run into a pole at 6 mph. You will feel a crunch and a bump. You’ll be startled and upset about your bumper, but it is unlikley you’ll be injured.

On the other hand, if you are stopped in a parking lot waiting for a space and another vehicle strikes you at 12 mph (the average speed of a car in a parking lot) you will likely feel a tremendous jolt, hear a loud bang and your car will be pushed forward a few feet. It is probable that your neck will be injured, although it may not show up for hours or days, but your bumper may not even show a dent.

In the first scenario all the energy of the crash was absorbed by the bumper. In the second, some of the energy was bled off into the two vehicles, but much of it was transmitted into your body causing your neck to deform into the “S” configuration resulting in injury.

Another consideration is that while a bumper may look undamaged from the outside after a collision, inside under the skin, the foam or plastic may be crushed or cracked. This is not seen from the outside, so photographs would make it appear as if no damage was sustained. Still further, the bumper may appear intact, but on unibody vehicles, the unibody may be bent or deformed by a collision. This may not be apparent and some auto repair facilities may miss it.

So what does this mean? It means that if you are rear-ended and your bumper is cracked, dented, or misplaced at all, your collision involved speeds in excess of 15 mph. That’s 3 times the human threshold for injury if we use the 5 mph figure. In reality, the proven threshold is only 2.5 mph, so a collision of 15 mph is 6 times the threshold for injury.

Now let’s say your vehicle sustained no visible damage, but your neck hurts after the collision. Does that mean you weren’t really injured? No. It means that the vehicle’s threshold for damage was not exceeded. The impact could have been 10 mph. Too low for bumper damage, but still 4 times the threshold for human injury.

In a low speed collision, the kinetic forces that are transferred from the other vehicle into your vehicle are not dampened or bled off by your bumper. Instead, the force is transmitted through the vehicle, into your seat and to your neck resulting in injury. If your body or neck are jolted or jerked by the impact, an injury could occur.

Another aspect to consider is if your vehicle is moved forward by the impact. An average car weighs close to 4,000 lbs. Let’s say you are hit from behind and your car is pushed forward a few feet, but shows no signs of bumper damage. Is it possible to be hurt? Yes, of course. The force required to move a stationary 4,000 lb object is tremendous. Can you walk up to a car sitting at a red light with its brakes on and shove it forward even an inch? Not likely. A collision that is strong enough to propel a car forward by even inches is plenty enough force to cause a whiplash injury.

So, as you have now learned, there really shouldn’t be any dispute on whether a low speed car accident collision can cause injuries. It has been scientifically proven by several studies. It is also a fact that the speed required to cause bodily injury is quite low, a scant 2.5 mph. It has also been shown that any accident that causes damage to the rear bumper is likely to cause injuries and even in accidents where there is no outward physical damage to the vehicle, there may still be sufficient forces involved to cause bodily injuries.

About Dr. Barry L Marks, DC
Dr. Marks is a car accident injury specialist in practice since 1986. He is a former Associate Clinical Professor at a leading Chiropractic College and has advanced post-doctorate training in whiplash, car accident reconstruction, brain trauma and orthopedics. He is the Medical Director of Orange Spine & Disc Rehabilitation Center in Orange County, CA where he specializes in back pain and neck pain from car accidents. His opinion is often sought by other doctors, attorneys and insurance companies. You may contact Dr. Marks’ office at (714) 938-0575 for a Free Car Accident Severity consultation. Or order his Free Car Accident report.

References

Panjabi MM, Grauer JN (1997): “Whiplash produces a S-shape curvature of the neck with hyperextension at lower levels. ” Spine 22 (21): 2489-94.

Panjabi MM, Cholewicki J, Nibu K, Grauer JN, Babat LB, Dvorak J, Bar HF (1998-12-01): “[Biomechanics of whiplash injury].” Orthopade 1998 Dec; 27(12): 813-9.

Koji Kaneoka, Koshiro Ono, Satoshi Inami and Koichiro Hayashi (99-04-15). “Motion analysis of cervical vertebrae during whiplash loading.” Spine 24(8): 763-770

Characteristics of Specific Automobile Bumpers in Low Velocity Impacts, SAE 940916