Ever have seatbelts save your life?

[Silveredwings]

I have; once in a car, once in a small airplane.

While driving a car, someone once hit me in the right arm with the bumper of his car. He ran a red light and hit my car in the right rear quarter (moving in the direction of my steering wheel) and proceeded driving through my car until he had accordianed my right door into the glovebox and his bumper actually hit me in the right arm. If the seatbelt (only a lap belt in those days) had not held me in the driver seat, the force of the collision would have knocked me into the passenger seat. Then I would have been shoved into the glove box with the right door being shoved in after me. It would not have been survivable. Yet I walked away.

Then on Memorial day around 1990, I saw a friend's plane flying overhead. I was near the airport so I drove over there. When I got there, he was back on the ground refueling the plane. He offered me a ride and I accepted. After we were about 150' off the ground, the engine died. This, by the way, is just about the worst time to lose an engine. We had dense forest directly ahead in the glide path. Unless he could squeeze it through a narrow gap we were going to head straight into the forest, shear off the wings, become a ballistic projectile, and probably wrap the plane around a tree. He opted for the gap. The next hazard was the pond/swamp below. If he could glide far enough, he might make it to a clearing and do a soft-field landing on a small grassy field. The problem with having a sudden need to maximize your glide when you're dead-stick (power-off) and short-final (very close to landing) is the temptation to pull back on the stick. This usually causes you to drop more quickly and therefore shortens your glide. Well, that's what happened and we landed in the swamp. The plane held together well and the wide 4-point seatbelts provided sufficient support to save our lives. All we had to do after that was swim out of the airframe and get to dry land. Easy. The rest was up to the NTSB.

Not being a pilot, I didn't know those technical details at the time. I figured most of this much later; you see when I got home, I called around and arranged a flight instructer and got into lessons of my own. I soloed a week later, and went on to do an instrument rating and commercial training. But that's another story.

[MetroMPG]

Quite the story, Silveredwings (the plane crash).

Touch wood, neither my seat belt (car or plane), air bags, or my motorcycle gear (when I had one) has been called into action to save me.

Though I've landed upside down and on my head a few times while mountain biking, and the helmet did its job (I think)...

[rh77]

No but plenty of times I've seen the result of seatbelt vs. no seatbelt as a medic. No brainer.

RH77

[Silveredwings]

Originally Posted by rh77

No but plenty of times I've seen the result of seatbelt vs. no seatbelt as a medic. No brainer.

RH77

...and yet there are still folks out there who think they're no safer with seatbelts. That always amazes me! Darwin has a plan for them.

[onegammyleg]

Originally Posted by rh77

No but plenty of times I've seen the result of seatbelt vs. no seatbelt as a medic. No brainer.

RH77

Overall yeah , seat belts save lives for sure., but in odd situations they can make things worse.
Wearing the belt just a little bit loose increases injury chances dramaticaly , and I read that a 1 inch of looseness reneders the belt useless.

In my opinion Lap belts , and lap sash belts realy should be outlawed and replaced with propper aero type harnesses.
In accidents lap sash belts allow your body to rotate and slide under the lap section.
This greatly increases the chance of back damage.

I have also heard of an accident frist hand where a guy died from internal injuries caused by the belt busting up his internal organs.
Not a bruise on him , but dead none the less.

Sure the accident was probably so bad he would have died anyway if he wasnt wearing a belt at all , but in this case , if he had of had a real harness , he might have made it.



P.S. How come on a bike a child has to have a real belt system and a seat that offers side support and protection , but in my old country (australia) its against the law to fit similar (but larger) seats for the driver and passenger in cars ??

[Silveredwings]

Originally Posted by onegammyleg

In my opinion Lap belts , and lap sash belts realy should be outlawed and replaced with propper aero type harnesses.

Yeah, I agree. After the plane crash, I had 3" wide purple bruises where the belts held me. I had only a minor scrape on one knee as the only other injury. Amazing.

I lost my girlfriend's sun glasses though. I had to buy her a new pair. BTW, she was in worse shape emotionally since she saw the whole flight right up to the point it disappeared behind trees, and then ended with a loud crunching sound.

[kps]

Originally Posted by onegammyleg

Wearing the belt just a little bit loose increases injury chances dramaticaly , and I read that a 1 inch of looseness reneders the belt useless.

That's what pretensioners are for.

[diamondlarry]

I'll start out by saying that I wear my belts all the time. That being said, here's my story from when I was 16. My dad had a '78 Civic CVCC hatchback. I was racing a friend in her dad's '65 Impala station wagon. I was even with her in the passing lane of a country road when I slipped off the edge of the road. There was a 3-4" drop-off and we were doing 85-90 mph. I pulled it back onto the road but was pulled back off the road. The next thing I knew, the car shot accross the road sideways at around 75 mph. The police said that it appeared that the car flipped end-over-end at least once and side to side 2-3 times. I had no seatbelt on and the drivers window was down. I walked away with no injuries; not even a scratch or a bruise. The next day as we were cleaning out the car at the salvage yard, I tried sitting in the driver's seat. The only way I could do that was to sink down and slide my butt to the edge of the seat because of the caved in roof. That Honda had shoulder harnesses and, had I been wering it, I would have been trapped underneath the roof when it caved in. The policeman on duty actually said that I probably would have been killed or permanently paralyzed if I had been wearing the shoulder harness. As I said above, I still wear my belts. The thing that irritates me is that most safety people will not even admit that things like this ever happen. Even though these things occasionally happen, I don't think it's an excuse to not wear seatbelts.

[Ted Hart]

Originally Posted by rh77

No but plenty of times I've seen the result of seatbelt vs. no seatbelt as a medic. No brainer.

RH77

I've always said...if you wear your belts, you stand a good chance of walking away... no belts? Then, they clean you up with a sponge!

[diamondlarry]

Originally Posted by Ted Hart

I've always said...if you wear your belts, you stand a good chance of walking away... no belts? Then, they clean you up with a sponge!

As I mentioned in my post above, I don't agree that this is the case 100% of the time. I would have been severely paralyzed or killed if I would have had mine on in my accident. Also, as mentioned in my post, I do wear mine now.