Ever have seatbelts save your life?
 

I have; once in a car, once in a small airplane.

While driving a car, someone once hit me in the right arm with the bumper of his car. He ran a red light and hit my car in the right rear quarter (moving in the direction of my steering wheel) and proceeded driving through my car until he had accordianed my right door into the glovebox and his bumper actually hit me in the right arm. If the seatbelt (only a lap belt in those days) had not held me in the driver seat, the force of the collision would have knocked me into the passenger seat. Then I would have been shoved into the glove box with the right door being shoved in after me. It would not have been survivable. Yet I walked away. :)

Then on Memorial day around 1990, I saw a friend's plane flying overhead. I was near the airport so I drove over there. When I got there, he was back on the ground refueling the plane. He offered me a ride and I accepted. After we were about 150' off the ground, the engine died. This, by the way, is just about the worst time to lose an engine. We had dense forest directly ahead in the glide path. Unless he could squeeze it through a narrow gap we were going to head straight into the forest, shear off the wings, become a ballistic projectile, and probably wrap the plane around a tree. He opted for the gap. The next hazard was the pond/swamp below. If he could glide far enough, he might make it to a clearing and do a soft-field landing on a small grassy field. The problem with having a sudden need to maximize your glide when you're dead-stick (power-off) and short-final (very close to landing) is the temptation to pull back on the stick. This usually causes you to drop more quickly and therefore shortens your glide. Well, that's what happened and we landed in the swamp. The plane held together well and the wide 4-point seatbelts provided sufficient support to save our lives. All we had to do after that was swim out of the airframe and get to dry land. Easy. The rest was up to the NTSB. ;)

Not being a pilot, I didn't know those technical details at the time. I figured most of this much later; you see when I got home, I called around and arranged a flight instructer and got into lessons of my own. I soloed a week later, and went on to do an instrument rating and commercial training. But that's another story. ;)

I was once bounced in a plane so hard that even with the belts tightened way down that I still hit my head on the ceiling. I was flying a Beech Sierra (a fairly heavy 4 seater) in the clouds at the time. After that we quit shooting missed approaches and went in for a full stop. ;)

Quite the story, Silveredwings (the plane crash).

Touch wood, neither my seat belt (car or plane), air bags, or my motorcycle gear (when I had one) has been called into action to save me.

Though I've landed upside down and on my head a few times while mountain biking, and the helmet did its job (I think)... :confused:

No, but...
 

No but plenty of times I've seen the result of seatbelt vs. no seatbelt as a medic. No brainer.

RH77

Well I never had airbags deploy but I know their effectiveness is greatly diminished if not wearing seatbelts. I never trusted myself to own a donorcycle, so I can't say much about leathers. And as for your luck, you must be touching the right kind of wood. :D

...and yet there are still folks out there who think they're no safer with seatbelts. That always amazes me! Darwin has a plan for them. :D

https://webpages.marshall.edu/~baksh2/Jul25-05.jpg
86 Thunderbird if you can't tell.

me going 60mph and a truck turns across 2 lanes of traffic 10 feet in front of me, I left 6 inches of skid marks so I just barely got on the brakes before I hit. The people in the truck didn't have seatbelts they had to be taken to the hospital, I had my belt and the only problem i got was a scratched elbow climbing out the window since the doors did not open due to the front wheels being stuck in them.

Took me 2 weeks to get that car back in road ready shape, I liked that car it would not die :) Insurance wanted to total it but when I drove it to the insurance office to get my check they freaked :D didn't know what to think about it.

Overall yeah , seat belts save lives for sure., but in odd situations they can make things worse.
Wearing the belt just a little bit loose increases injury chances dramaticaly , and I read that a 1 inch of looseness reneders the belt useless.

In my opinion Lap belts , and lap sash belts realy should be outlawed and replaced with propper aero type harnesses.
In accidents lap sash belts allow your body to rotate and slide under the lap section.
This greatly increases the chance of back damage.

I have also heard of an accident frist hand where a guy died from internal injuries caused by the belt busting up his internal organs.
Not a bruise on him , but dead none the less.

Sure the accident was probably so bad he would have died anyway if he wasnt wearing a belt at all , but in this case , if he had of had a real harness , he might have made it.



P.S. How come on a bike a child has to have a real belt system and a seat that offers side support and protection , but in my old country (australia) its against the law to fit similar (but larger) seats for the driver and passenger in cars ??
https://www.giant-bicycle.com/images/...2005/Coach.jpg

Never had them save my life, but I'll always wear them because I don't have a little brother any more because HE thought he'd be OK without wearing it.

Interesting story.

Oh man. Sorry to hear about that.