Airbags are important life-saving devices, but that doesn’t mean they are infallible. Sometimes, it is the airbag itself that inflicts injuries on car accident victims. After suffering an airbag injury in Minnesota, you may need assistance from a Minneapolis car accident lawyer to understand your legal rights and recovery options.
Facial Injuries
Airbags work by triggering a chemical reaction that rapidly inflates the bag in the event of a vehicle collision. The speed of airbag inflation is paramount in protecting a vehicle occupant from crash forces. However, it is also what can inflict certain injuries.
The power and force of an airbag deploying can cause facial injuries upon impact, including abrasions, bruising, lacerations and even broken bones. Ear and eye trauma may also occur, potentially damaging the occupant’s hearing or vision.
Trunk Injuries
The impact of the airbag against an occupant’s trunk can also cause injury. High-velocity airbag deployment may cause chest injuries, rib fractures, collarbone injuries, lung injuries and punctures, bruising, abdominal injuries, internal organ damage, and internal bleeding. Spinal cord injuries may also occur, including herniated disks, spinal fractures and whiplash.
Concussions
If the victim’s head makes contact with the airbag when it deploys with extreme force, this can result in traumatic brain injuries, including concussions, contusions, swelling or bleeding in the brain, coup-contrecoup injuries, and diffuse axonal injuries. Brain injuries can result in symptoms such as cognitive problems, behavioral changes and motor function disorders.
Chemical Burns or Irritation
A chemical reaction is used to achieve airbag inflation in a fraction of a second. Most modern airbags use sodium azide to create nitrogen gas when ignited, but this interaction also creates harmful sodium metal, which is then neutralized with additional chemicals.
A car accident survivor may experience adverse effects from the cloud of chemicals released by airbag deployment, including skin and eye irritation, a rash, an allergic reaction, friction burns, chemical burns, and asthma attacks.
Injuries From Defective Airbags
Airbag injuries can be more severe if the airbag does not inflate the way the manufacturer intended. Defective or faulty airbags may deploy randomly, deploy too late, fail to deploy completely or even explode upon deployment.
Design, manufacturing and marketing defects can make crash-related injuries worse or cause additional damage. In the case of exploding airbags, such as the defective Takata airbags, injuries from shrapnel can be severe.
Can You Receive Compensation for Airbag Injuries?
Injuries from a car accident in Minnesota can be compensated through one or multiple insurance claims. Minnesota is a no-fault insurance state, meaning an injured crash victim will seek financial compensation from his or her own car insurance coverage first.
Drivers are required to carry personal injury protection (PIP) insurance to pay for their own medical costs. In the event that car accident injuries are severe, however, or if the airbag was defective and the victim has grounds for a product liability claim, another party can often be held liable.
If you get injured by an airbag in an automobile accident or due to random deployment, consult with a personal injury attorney about your legal rights. You may be able to recover compensation for your losses from one or more parties.