Finite Element Based Injury Metrics for Pulmonary Contusion From Vehicle to Vehicle Crash Simulations

Motor Vehicle Crashes (MVCs) are a public health problem in the United States. In 2009, 33,808 Americans were killed in a MVC and 2.22 million more were injured.⁴ Pulmonary contusion (PC) is a common injury following MVC with over 38% of the Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) 3+ thoracic injuries identified as some form of PC in a recent National Automotive Sampling System (NASS) study.⁵ Miller et al. correlated the percent injured lung to the possibility of developing Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). The results indicated that if 20% of the lung was injured, the incidence of ARDS sharply increased with seventy-eight percent of those patients developing ARDS.² The significance of these findings is that the volumetric measurement of PC can predict possible clinical outcomes.