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The purpose of this study was to investigate eye injuries and orbital fractures resulting from frontal automobile crashes and to determine the effects of frontal airbags. For this two part study, cases in NASS were selected from the years 1993 through 2000 that include drivers and front seat occupants only, while excluding ejected occupants and rollovers. In addition, only frontal impacts were considered, which are defined as having a primary direction of force (PDOF) of 11, 12, or 1 o'clock. Eye injuries in the NASS database were identified using the current AIS injury codes. An analysis of the cases indicates that 3.1% of occupants exposed to an airbag deployment sustained an eye injury, compared to 2.0% of those occupants not exposed to an airbag deployment. Moreover, there was a significant increase in the risk of corneal abrasion for occupants exposed to an airbag deployment (ρ = 0.03).

The purpose of this study was to investigate severe upper extremity injuries and minor skin injuries resulting from frontal automobile crashes and to determine the effects of frontal airbags. The National Automotive Sampling System database files from 1993 to 2000 were examined in a study that included 25,464 individual cases that occurred in the United States. An analysis of the cases indicated that occupants exposed to an airbag deployment were statistically more likely to sustain a severe upper extremity injury (2.7%), than those occupants not exposed to an airbag deployment (1.6%) (p=0.01). In particular, 0.7% of occupants exposed to an airbag deployment sustained a severe upper extremity injury specifically from the airbag. In addition, when in crashes with an airbag deployment, older occupants were at a higher risk for severe upper extremity injury, as well as occupants in crashes with higher changes in velocity.