The Body
The science of injury. What a crash, a fall, a blast, or a blow does to a person, cited to the medicine, and what that means for proving the case.
The Air Brake
A loaded truck does not begin to stop when the driver’s foot moves; it begins to stop when the air arrives. The half second of brake lag, the federal stopping-distance standard and the 2009 rule that cut it from 355 feet to 250, the test a truck must pass on the road, what the arithmetic means for the car ahead, why a truck that cannot stop swerves, and what each of those numbers does in a Texas courtroom.
Ride-Down
A crash is a stop, and the only question that matters to the body is how much distance the stop is spread over: a belted person slows with the car across feet of crumpling metal, an unbelted person over inches of dashboard, at several times the force. The arithmetic of ride-down, what the belt and the air bag each do, and the two questions Texas law asks in order.
The Quiet Gas
Carbon monoxide has no color and no smell, and it kills by taking oxygen’s seat in the blood and holding it about two hundred times harder. Why the symptoms look like the flu, why the fingertip monitor reads normal in a poisoned patient, the injury that shows up weeks later, what two Texas storms taught about generators, and what the law asks of the people who sold, rented and ran the machine.
Past the Light
Low beams light about the next two hundred feet, and at highway speed a car needs more than that to stop. How far headlights really reach, the arithmetic of outrunning them, why a dark object appears so late, what the pedestrian count says about the hours after sunset, and how Texas divides a crash at the edge of the beam.
The Egg Carton
A school bus protects children without seat belts by compartmentalization: tall padded seats set close together, so a child thrown forward meets a cushion before he can build speed. Why it works in the crash it was built for, why it fails in a side impact and a rollover, what Texas now requires on every bus, and who answers when a car crosses the line into one.
Low-Side, High-Side
A motorcycle that loses its grip goes down one of two ways: it slides out and falls on its low side, or the tire catches again and throws the rider over the high side. The traction budget, why each fall breaks what it breaks, why the rider could not steer out of it, and what the road keeps as evidence.
Seven Times the Energy
Every car is built for a crash in the thirties: the federal frontal test runs at 35 mph and the toughest side test at 37. A car at 100 carries seven to eight times that energy. The same crash at 40, 50 and 56 mph, how far a car needs to stop, and where speed becomes gross negligence.
High and Heavy
A loaded tanker can roll at a speed that feels ordinary. The fraction that decides when a vehicle tips, what a partly full tank does in a turn, why federal law puts the physics in the driver’s license, and why a tanker that rolls and does not leak is engineering, not luck.
The Splash
A chemical in the eye is the injury where the first seconds decide the most. Acid or alkali, why the water has to be within ten seconds, what the eye doctor looks for, and what the law requires around corrosive chemicals.
The Stand
Deer season starts off the ground. A fifteen-foot fall ends at about twenty-one miles an hour, and in the trauma studies the stand, not the gun, is the hunter’s most dangerous weapon. The physics, the spine, the harness, and the recreational use statute.
The Harness
A fall is decided by the stopping distance, not the height: inches on concrete, three and a half feet in a harness. The physics inside the OSHA fall rule, and whose job it is.
Outweighed
Momentum is shared by weight, so the car takes almost all of the change in speed. Why most people killed in truck crashes were in the other vehicles, and why most truckers who die were in crashes with no other vehicle.
Over the Top
When a motorcyclist goes over a freeway barrier, the wall is not the injury. The fall is. Why the rider separates from the machine, what a body does in the air, and why the height of the drop matters more than the speed of the hit.
The Third Collision
Every crash is three collisions: the car against the object, the body against the car, and the organs against the body. The third one is the one no photograph shows, and it is the one that tears the aorta and shears the brain.
The Roll
Most crashes are one impact. A rollover is a dozen. Why the belt does less in a roll, why the roof and the window are where the injury comes from, and why a tall or loaded vehicle tips when a low one slides.
The Cage
A car in a crash gets a cage built for the purpose. A motorcycle does not, and the rider stands in for it. The biomechanics of a rider against a heavy truck: the crumple zone, the second impact, and the blind spot.
The Reaction
Two cars are closing in the dark and only one nervous system is still working. The pharmacology of impairment behind the wheel: why the sober driver brakes and the impaired driver never does.
The Lucid Interval
He walked away from the wreck and talked to the officer, and two hours later he was dead. The epidural bleed, the middle meningeal artery, and why the calm after a head injury can be the disease.
The Ear
The blast is over in a heartbeat, but the ringing never stops. Why noise and pressure kill the ear’s hair cells for good, why tinnitus and hearing loss are permanent, and why an injury no scan can show is still real.
The Trench
A cubic yard of soil outweighs a small car and a wall of it drops in seconds. How a trench kills, the OSHA rule written in advance, and the gross-negligence door through the comp bar.
The Grade Crossing
A car meeting a train is an aluminum can meeting a car. It cannot stop in under a mile and cannot steer. The physics, and the question of who guarded the crossing.
Current
Electricity burns from the inside out, so the skin lies about the damage, and the heart can fail hours later. How current and arc flash injure, and the law of working the lines.
Crush
A crush injury runs on two clocks, and the second is the deadly one. Traumatic asphyxia, crush syndrome, and why release from the weight can be the fatal moment.
The S-Curve
The neck bends into a shape it was never built to make, and that S, at the facet joints, is where the whiplash injury lives, often with a clean scan.
The Fixed Object
A tree, a pole, a bridge pillar does not move and does not give. Why a car that finds a narrow fixed object is so often the worst wreck of all.
Closing Speed
In a head-on, the two speeds add. Why a median crossover is so much worse than hitting a wall.
Thrown Clear
There is an old belief that being thrown from a car is a kind of luck. The physics say the opposite: the belt and the roof are what save you.
Rhythm
A trauma therapy has you follow a moving finger with your eyes. It often helps. Why it helps is the honest argument.
In the Game
The sense that you can still affect your own recovery is measurable, and the defense will try to use it both ways.
Fertilizer
A fertilizer that feeds a field can level a town. Why an ammonium nitrate blast injures in four ways, and the quiet one that kills.
The Clot
A broken leg can kill a month later, from a clot that formed while it healed. Why stillness is its own injury.
The Wrap and the Ground
A person struck by a car is not hit once. Why the last impact, the ground, is so often the one that kills.
The Second Hit
In a chain-reaction crash, the label hides the one thing that matters: which impact did the harm, and how you prove it.
Inches of Steel
The front of a car has three feet to save you. The door has three inches. Why the turn across traffic is so dangerous.
The Body at 13
A seatbelt was built for an adult body. Why the belt rides onto a child's abdomen, and what submarining does.
Fire
Sometimes the crash is survivable and the fire is not. Why a fuel-fed fire turns a survivable wreck fatal, and the standard meant to stop it.
Wired to Move
Why the hurt person says "I am fine" at the scene and wakes up unable to move. The crash-moment stress response, and the body's own painkillers.
Fog
A concussion can leave the scans clean and the person changed. The brain injury the standard imaging was never built to see.
Controlled Trauma
The surgery that fixes the injury is its own injury. The stress response, and the fog that can follow.
Looking, Not Seeing
Why a driver can stare straight at a parked truck and not see it in time. The perception science.
The Body at 84
The same crash a thirty-year-old walks away from can kill at eighty-four. The biomechanics of age.
Underride
Why hitting the back of a truck at a survivable speed can kill. The physics of the ride-height mismatch.
The Stop
A working muscle is a gland that writes to the brain. Take the movement away, and the mood follows on a schedule.