Some believe you should relax your body and go with the flow of the crash, while others believe bracing for collision is the proper response. According to research, bracing for a motor vehicle accident (when possible) is the best way to avoid severe injuries, particularly in rear crash scenarios.
Keeping your body forward-facing will reduce neck and back injuries. Tensing your body, as though it is going to bear the brunt of a large impact, tightens the muscles for protection of your internal organs.
Should you brace for impact, tensing all of your muscles, or should you try to be as relaxed as possible? Research shows that people who are aware of an impending collision and have time to brace for impact have better long-term outcomes and less injury. So you should always brace for impact.
For example, if you reach out with your arm and brace it against a dashboard, it can cause it to break. This is one reason some people say you should stay limp. While this may happen, bracing yourself with your arm will prevent you from impacting your head, neck or chest.
Take some deep breaths to get calm.
After a crash, a person may feel a wide range of emotions — shock, guilt, fear, nervousness, or anger — all of which are normal. But take a few deep breaths or count to 10 to calm down. The calmer you are, the better prepared you will be to handle the situation.
With this specific phobia, you may feel anxious when you think about or see a place where you fear an accident may happen. Many people with this fear have had past traumatic experiences with accidents. You can overcome fear of accidents with exposure therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy and other treatments.
Sometimes after an accident you may experience depression, flashbacks, fear of driving again, and general anxiety. All of this is very normal, and we are here to help. You are not alone. We treat many others who have experienced a car accident and who are now dealing with the emotional and mental effects.
More than 12,000 deaths — 29 percent of all crash fatalities — occurred in speed-related crashes in 2021. High speeds make a crash more likely because it takes longer to stop or slow down. They also make collisions more deadly because crash energy increases exponentially as speeds go up.
“Anxiety and tension increase the level of pain.
Excessive sleeping or fatigue can also be a sign of a serious physical problem, like a traumatic brain injury. This type of injury is common after a car crash due to the tremendous force of impact involved in even a minor collision. Drowsiness and fatigue are just two common symptoms of a traumatic brain injury.
Generally speaking, there are some common tips should you decide you want to brace for impact: Press your head back against the headrest of your vehicle to protect it and your neck. Never lean forward or turn your head during impact. Tense up your entire body during the seconds before the crash occurs.
The sudden impact of a car accident can cause individual muscle fibers to tear, causing swelling and inflammation at the injury site. Inflammation then irritates the sensitive nerves surrounding the muscle fibers, causing pain, tingling, and burning.
If you are in a situation where you have time to brace for impact but no time to avoid the crash, you should brace yourself. Research shows that people who brace for impact in a car crash end up with milder injuries and better long-term outcomes physically.
You might feel shock, guilt, fear, or anger. Each of these emotions is normal and expected — whether or not you're at fault for the crash. You might immediately be playing it over in your head to try to recall what happened and where things went wrong. This makes sense, but try to remain calm to handle the situation.
Car accidents often prove extremely traumatic. Not only can they result in severe injury, they can increase anxiety or prove difficult for many people to cope with. You may find yourself suffering from a range of emotional challenges, including increased anxiety or PTSD.
Fall More Safely
If you feel yourself falling: Try to let your body go limp. Keep your knees, wrists and elbows loose and bent. Don't try to break your fall by landing on your hands or knees.
Why Drunk Drivers Don't Get Hurt in Car Crashes. One of the main effects of being drunk is that people's reaction times and perception slows down dramatically. In many cases, this is the reason for the crash in the first place. However, these slower reaction times also help the drunk driver avoid injury.
MUSCLE GUARDING: The same nerves that signal to you pain, also indicate an injury has happened. Your body's protective response is to cause the muscles around the injured area to tighten up as a means of guarding the injury. In short, muscle guarding is your body's protective mechanism to splint the injured area.
"Working out when sore is okay as long as it isn't affecting your movement to the point where it's causing you to compensate and do something in a way that's unsafe," says Dr. Hedt. "Muscle soreness can be a deterrent to exercising, but it's temporary and the more you exercise, the less you should feel it.
A person hit by a car traveling at 35 miles per hour is five times more likely to die than a person hit by a car traveling at 20 miles per hour. The risk of death at every speed is higher for older pedestrians and pedestrians hit by trucks and other large vehicles.
One study shows that doubling the speed from 40 to 80 actually quadruples the force of impact. Even at 70 mph, your chances of surviving a head-on collision drop to 25 percent.
While you will likely be injured in a collision, you will almost always survive. The survival rate for auto accidents is remarkably high, given modern vehicle safety standards like seat belts and airbags, so there should be little reason to fear driving. That means there is only a 0.99% death rate for car crashes.
Car accident victims can experience PTSD
Sometimes the mood changes after a car accident are so severe they disrupt your normal life and may be signs of a more serious emotional injury, such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Following a car accident, you might expect to experience both physical and psychological symptoms related to stress and emotional shock. Some of these, such as a heightened sense of arousal, can happen soon after, while some, such as a low mood and unwanted thoughts, can persist for days or even weeks afterwards.
If you suffered permanent or debilitating injuries after the crash, these can also contribute to feelings of loss and depression. Being unable to move on from psychological trauma is considered a sign of acute stress or PTSD. PTSD, depression, and anxiety are common symptoms after a car accident.