In this paper, skull, brain and cervical spine injuries through direct head impacts are reported. 14 head impacts (frontal, lateral or occipital and rigid or padded) with cadavers and 6 padded head impacts by using Hybrid III and European Side Impact Dummy (EUROSID) dummies at a velocity of 20 km/h were performed. Accelerations at the top of the head and the epidural pressure at the contre coup site were measured. The evaluated resultant acceleration in the center of gravity for padded impacts of the cadavers is in agreement with the values observed for the dummy, whereas the Head Injury Criterion (HIC) values of the dummy tests are clearly higher than those of the cadavers. Except for one test, all the rigid impacts show skull fractures. The brain injuries include contre coup subarachnoid haematomas of different size. Possible mechanisms for causing subarachnoid haematomas are interactions between the skull-brain interface. Skin lacerations were observed in rigid frontal impacts and scalp contusions in occipital rigid head impacts. It is concluded that padding prevents skull fractures but not brain injuries. Only in two cases the cervical spine was uninjured. Response and injury mechanism are critically discussed with those existing in the literature.
Samenvatting