Airbag induced eye injuries, although uncommon,
present a concern due to their potential for serious and permanent damage.
Partial and even total blindness have been recorded in some cases.
These injuries may occure due to contact with the deploying airbag, or
from the impact of high speed particles released during airbag deployment.
Research is being performed using computational modeling and
experiments with human and surrogate eye models in order to investigate the
injury mechanisms and to develop injury risk curves.
In addition, the effects of wearing glasses as well as having
corrective surgery measure are being examined.
REFERENCES:
Duma, S.M., Kress, T.A., Porta, D.J., Woods, C.D., Snider,
J.N., Fuller, P.M., Simmons, R.J., "Air Bag Induced Eye Injuries: A Report of
25 Cases," The Journal of Trauma,
Vol. 41, No. 1, pp. 114-119, 1996.
Duma, S.M., Kress, T.A., Porta, D.J., Woods, C.D., "An
Experimental Study of Airbag-Induced Eye Injuries," Proceedings of the 24th International Workshop on Human Subjects for
Biomechanical Research, Albuquerque, New Mexico, November, 1996.
Duma, S.M., Kress, T.A., Porta, D.J., Simmons, R.J.,
Alexander, C.L., Woods, C.D., "Airbag-Induced Eye Injuries: Experiments with
In Situ Cadaver Eyes," Biomedical
Science Instrumentation
1997;33:106-11.