by Dr. P. Carl Rafey
2. December 2010 10:46
How can I be hurt if there is no damage to my car? This is a question I often get from my patients after being in an automobile accident. Most car accidents happen at a low rate of speed. Usually only 5-10 miles per hour. This is both good and bad. When a car crushes is absorbs the force instead of your body. When bumpers were crushing at this low rate of speed, it helped to prevent injury but was also very costly to repair. Now bumpers are made to hold up under the stress of these low speed accidents. Now the bad news. Now the force of the crash is absorbed by you! Think of it like a pool ball. When one pool ball hits a second ball, the second ball shoots off because it took the energy from the first one. When you are sitting in your car and are hit from behind in 1/20 of a second your head whips back and forward with up to 9 times the force of gravity. This is a huge amount of force in a very short time.
To help understand think of it this way...
1. Do you open the egg carton to check for broken eggs even if the container is not damaged? Have you ever found a cracked egg in a container that is perfect on the outside?
2. Remember silly putty? It will stretch across the room if stretched slowly but if pulled quickly it will break.
Recent studies estimate that 35% of people in low speed collisions have undiagnosed ligament tears in their neck.
If you are in a car accident even without damage, please see your Chiropractor.
Click Here for more information on Whiplash.
Be Healthy!
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