The improvement of passive car security devices led to a reduction of injuries, especially of the head, the neck and the torso mainly due to the airbag function. The passenger's foot and ankle could not profit from this development. Some investigators even reported a progression of leg injuries. In this study, the outhors investigated a current collective of patients with foot and ankle fractures or severe soft tissue injuries in relation with defined crash parameters. Special interest was paid to the car's footwell. The following conclusions were reached: Foot/ankle fractures are seldom injuries (1.8 percent of injured persons). They are a typical drivers injury (driver:passenger = 4.5:1). Often we see these fractures in patients with polytrauma (n=10 of 40, 6 patients died). Foot/ankle fractures mostly happen in frontal crashes in cars of small dimension. High intrusion levels seem to produce more often ankle and hindfoot fractures than mid- and fore-foot fractures. The fractures are mostly caused by the pedals. (A) Paper to the 1st International ESAR Conference on 3rd/4th September 2004 at Hannover Medical School (Germany), Session: Injury Prevention and Mechanisms. For the covering abstract see ITRD D355457.
Abstract