Wednesday, 28 June 2017

Injury Mechanisms of Aortic Ruptures to Vehicle Occupants and Vulnerable Road Users – An In-Depth-Investigation over Time


journal of forensic biomechanics impact factor
A rupture of the aorta was a common injury observed in the 60ies and 70ies regarding unprotected car occupants, reported in 10% to 15% of vehicle mortalities in the past. With this study it is investigated how often the Aortic Rupture can be observed in today´s traffic accident scene and what changes happened in the course of time history regarding different kinds of traffic participation and different kinds of injury mechanisms. Based on very well documented in-depth-accident cases by GIDAS (German-In-Depth-Accident-Study) a representative sample of all traffic accidents during a 40 year period (years 1973 to 2014) is available (n>100.000 involved persons) and the cases with Aortic ruptures AR (n=142) are analyzed in detail. The Aortic rupture can be observed in high speed accidents with high body deceleration and direct load to the thorax. Nearly always a high compression of the thorax is responsible for the load direction to the heart vessel.