Unrestrained Vehicle Rollover

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Case Summary: One evening, a vehicle with six teenagers was traveling down a road when the driver lost control and the vehicle rolled over.  When the vehicle came to rest on its roof, the two front-seat occupants attempted to flee the scene and were stopped by local residents.  Three of the four teenagers in the rear seat ran from the scene and were later found at a local store.  The fourth teenager was partially ejected from the vehicle and her arm was entrapped under the roof of the vehicle.

The five occupants who exited the vehicle had only minor injuries; however, the trapped girl had multiple skull fractures with brain injury and extensive lacerations to the head, arms, and torso.  She also had “road rash” with glass embedded in her wounds.  The nature of her injuries indicated the majority occurred due to contact with the roadway once her upper body was outside of the vehicle.

The police report indicated none of the six occupants were wearing seatbelts.

Expert Analysis: The vehicle had moderate damage from the rollover.  While the roof over the front seats was crushed down several inches, the roof over the rear seat was only slightly crushed, with almost no intrusion into the occupant space.  The left-rear occupant space, where the injured girl had reportedly been seated, was in good condition.  There was no physical evidence of seatbelt usage.  The injured girl admitted she was not wearing a seatbelt at the time of the crash.

A fit check was conducted in an exemplar vehicle of the same year, make, and model, with a surrogate of the same height and weight as the injured girl.  The fit check indicated that if she had been wearing the available seatbelt, her upper body would have been contained inside the vehicle.  This would have eliminated the injuries sustained outside the vehicle as a partially ejected occupant.  She had large clearances to the interior surfaces of the vehicle.  Given the relatively low accelerations of a rollover, and the lack of intrusion, she would have been substantially more protected had she been wearing her seatbelt.  The exposure to the injuries that occurred outside the vehicle would have been eliminated.

Result: The case went to trial.  A settlement was reached during the trial.