Abstract
【Introduction】The incidence of severe injuries caused by the extensive vehicle collisions has decreased owing to the legislation of wearing a seatbelt for all vehicle passengers and improvement of vehicle safety equipment. However, body injuries due to seatbelt itself have been increased. 【Objective】To clarify the patterns and severities of body injuries due to seatbelt compression, retrospective analysis was performed. 【Material & Methods】A total of 14 cases of trunk injuries due to a seatbelt compression in our critical care center from April 2013 to May 2018 were reviewed. 【Results】The average age of all patients was 49 years old. Ten patients were vehicle drivers and 3 were front seat passengers. Among 10 patients with injury severity score of 9 or more, 4 patients had severe injury in the neck, thorax, or abdomen, and 6 patients suffered from multiple severe injuries in the neck, thorax, and/or abdomen. For 4 patients, because the seatbelt was considered as inappropriately positioned, they suffered from mesenteric injury and fascial hemorrhage in the abdominal wall owing to the compression of the abdomen by lap belt or subcutaneous hemorrhage of the neck owing to the compression of the neck by shoulder belt. 【Conclusion】To check the seatbelt using situation is important for a correct diagnosis of traffic injurie of motor vehicle passengers. Even if the injury severity is considered as minor, patients should be carefully followed for a while after admission.
