Safety experts: Seat belts rarely can cause injuries

The seat belt usually does its job by restraining a person, but may cause broken ribs, bruising or internal injury

From CNN Producer Julie Vallese

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- While safety experts recommend that drivers and passengers use seat belts, the restraints themselves can cause harm in some accidents, doctors and emergency medical personnel said.

The experts stressed such incidents are rare and that seat belts remain life-saving devices.

The issue may receive new scrutiny because of the accident of model Niki Taylor, who remains in critical condition at an Atlanta hospital after the car in which she was a passenger struck a telephone pole. Her doctors have not said anything publicly about the cause of her injuries -- including damage to her liver -- but her attorney told CNN Monday that the seat belt is one of several factors he is looking at in his investigation.

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Attorney Stephen Screnci said he was interested in learning whether there was "a history" of problems with seat belt use with the particular car involved in the accident, a 1993 Nissan Maxima.

Dierdre Dickerson, a spokeswoman for Nissan, called the seat belts used by the car maker "safe and effective" and said there have not been any problems with them. "At this point, I think it's a little too early to talk about whether it was or wasn't" a factor in Taylor's injuries.

Emergency medical service technicians, doctors and trauma surgeons are well aware of the potential problems seat belts can cause in automobile crashes. Many are specifically trained to look for signs that a crash victim may be hurt despite not having any visible injuries and being able to walk away from a crash.

Such injuries are usually the result of a person not wearing the seat belt correctly and are most often found in vehicles with an automatic shoulder belt system, where the person chooses not to manually click the lap belt. Tension of just the shoulder belt by itself can cause damage to internal organs.

The government started requiring automakers to install the automatic system because of concerns people were being injured by airbags and not wearing their seat belts. Automatic shoulder belts are no longer required by the government.

Internal injuries can also be caused when riders put the shoulder belt behind them leaving the lap belt to withstand most of the tension in a crash.

The seat belt usually does its job by restraining a person, but may cause broken ribs, bruising or internal injury.

Pole crashes are especially bad because the energy of the crash is concentrated in one part of the vehicle. A person's body continues to move until the pole comes in contact with a hard, solid part of the vehicle.

Dr. Jeffrey Augenstein, professor of surgery at the University of Miami, knows firsthand about the dangers a seat belt can cause to the liver. He was the surgeon on call when a women who felt fine at the crash site suddenly collapsed on the way to the hospital. She was suffering from liver damage and internal bleeding. Augenstein knew what to look for, operated on the crash victim and the patient had a full recovery.

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