Automobile airbags are certainly life-savers, but the safety mechanism was also the cause of a bizarre eye injury for one 17-year-old girl.
A Michigan teenager involved in a car accident didn't even have a chance to blink before an airbag deployed, leaving an imprint of its canvas directly on her eyes, Live Science reported, highlighting how the threat of an airbag's sudden movement can pose a huge risk of damaging a passenger's eyes.
The teenager was sitting in the front passenger seat when her car slammed into another car in front of it, landing her in the emergency room, according to a new report published June 25 in the New England Journal of Medicine. Since she was experiencing pain and burning in her eyes, doctors examine them by using a special florescent dye that highlights scratches or tearing of the cornea when a blue light is shone on it.
"When we looked at her under a magnified view, we could see there was this very unusual imprint on the surface of the cornea ... a rather dramatic-looking picture of the imprint of the nylon mesh pattern of the airbag cover," said Dr. Jonathan Trobe, an ophthalmologist at the University of Michigan Kellogg Eye Center, in Ann Arbor. "It's quite interesting to see that the airbag deployed so quickly that she didn't have time to close her eyes," Trobe told Live Science.
Although the airbag left an imprint on one eye and tore the surface of the other eye, the girl's injuries were heal within 24 hours. She also suffered from a small amount of bleeding around the eyes, which was resolved over two weeks.
Even though airbags are known to prevent head trauma and save lives, they have become infamous for causing severe eye injuries as well, experts said. "I have seen this a lot," said Dr. Jules Winokur, an ophthalmologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, who wasn't involved with the case. "Actually, this case report is a really mild case of the damage that airbags can do."
The force of an airbag can cause nerve problems, detach the retina or rip apart eye tissue - sometimes with life-long consequences and even when eyes are closed at the time of impact. "I was just involved, over the weekend, on a patient here in the hospital who was in a car accident with an airbag injury, and now is completely blind in one eye," Winokur said.
Still, most airbag-related eye injuries are mild and temporary, with positive outcomes to the eyes, doctors said. According to Live Science, without an airbag, injuries can range from broken facial bones and eye damage to head trauma and death. "The thing to keep in mind here is that if you didn't have the airbag and hit your head, it would be much worse," Trobe said. "This is almost like an exchange. This is a little bit of small price to pay."
The image of the teenager's eye scan, with its canvas imprint, can he viewed here.
