Hayes+Associates, Inc., analysis demonstrates protective advantages of seat belts in bus rollover

Using the fundamental laws of physics, a team of biomechanical engineers at Hayes+Associates, Inc. (H+A), concluded that the fatalities and injuries that had resulted from a 2014 commercial bus crash would have been avoided or reduced in severity by the use of seat belts. 

In the early hours of May 21, 2014, an interstate bus traveling westbound on I-10 near Blythe, CA, went off road and rolled one-quarter turn onto its right side, resulting in five deaths and injuries to 30 passengers, including an 11-day old infant.  Most of the injuries were caused by a fall from one side of the bus to the other.

Hayes+Associates was retained by attorney David R. Lira of the Los Angeles firm Girardi I Keese (http://www.girardikeese.com) on behalf of a multi-firm, Plaintiff’s committee of attorneys representing the passengers.

Led by Senior Engineer, Erik D. Power, P.E., with testimony provided by CEO Wilson C. “Toby” Hayes, Ph.D., the H+A team analyzed what caused the injuries and fatalities in the actual crash and what would have happened had lap-shoulder belts been available.  David King, P.E., and his team at MEA Forensic, Inc. (https://meaforensic.com), was retained by the Plaintiffs to analyze the off road motion and rollover of the bus.

The H+A report concluded: “For the fatally injured passengers who died acutely as a consequence of the rollover, the failure on the part of the manufacturer to provide three-point restraints was the direct and proximate cause of their acute and fatal injuries.  Had three-point restraints been in use, these passengers would not have died or sustained serious injuries,”

A recent New York Times article about bus and train passenger safety describes serious crashes as rare but particularly injurious because passengers and their personal items are not secured by seat belts or enclosed storage.

(https://www.nyt.com/2019/04/08/business/amtrak-greyhound-safety-bus-train.html)  When a bus abruptly slows or stops, unrestrained passengers continue to travel at the vehicle’s original velocity, even, at times, to the point of ejection from the bus, resulting in injury and death.

The Times interviewed T. Bella Dinh-Zarr, recently retired from the National Transportation Safety Board,  concerning the 44 people who had died in bus crashes in 2017: “Those 44 people could have been saved.  In some cases, just simply wearing their seat belt would have saved them from being severely injured and then dying from those injuries, or being ejected and killed.” H+A findings in the MCI bus rollover case comport with the New York Times article.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has long recommended lap-shoulder restraints in commercial and school buses. Despite their effectiveness and strong recommendations from NTSB for their use, seat belts are not mandatory in most buses.  Opponents of seat belts in buses object to the cost of installation and the inability of drivers or companies to enforce their use. 

By using simple physics calculations to analyze complex injuries and even deaths, the H+A team believes it has provided a powerful and generally applicable tool for the analysis and prevention of occupant injuries in bus rollovers that are comparable to the Blythe incident.  That simple physics could accurately reflect what happened to passengers in the real crash provides confidence in the predictions as to how much seat belts would have helped.

It is hoped that a case like the Blythe bus crash will awaken the public to the need for seat belts in commercial and school buses.  “Litigation,” Hayes maintains, “is one approach to effect change in a culture that is sometimes highly resistant to it.”

With contributions by the Hayes+Associates biomechanical analysis, the MCI bus rollover case settled prior to trial for an undisclosed amount.

Hayes+Associates, Inc. (http://www.hayesassoc.com) is an expert witness and consulting firm based in Corvallis, OR.  The company brings more than 75 years of collective experience in academic research, university teaching, and forensic testimony to practice areas that include vehicle collisions, premises safety, slips and falls, products liability, worker safety, sports and recreation, patent litigation and criminal matters.

Hayes+Associates Analysis Plays Key Role in Jury’s Defense Verdict for Low-Speed/Rear-Impact Collision Case

Biomechanical analysis of a 2014 Low Speed/Rear-Impact collision by a team at Hayes+Associates, Inc., demonstrated that every-day activities routinely subject the head, neck, and low back to greater loading than the forces exerted in an Oregon couple’s collision.

Plaintiffs argued that their alleged injuries were made even worse by their prior medical histories of arthritis and surgical fusions.  They sought $1.4 million in damages.

H+A Senior Associate, Erik D. Power, P.E., and CEO Wilson C. “Toby” Hayes, PhD, first used the fundamental laws of physics to confirm the minor nature of the collision between the involved vehicles, special software to visualize the motions and forces sustained by the two occupants, and a review of medical records and x-rays to show that the conditions claimed by the patients were the consequence of age and arthritis and not the result of the minor collision in question.

The jury found for the defense, indicating that the plaintiffs had not proved their case as a matter of law and had failed to present credible testimony on key elements of their claim. The trial team for the defense was Edward L. Sears for American Family Insurance, Portland, OR, and Ralph Spooner from Spooner & Much, P.C., in Salem.

Hayes+Associates, Inc. (http://www.hayesassoc.com) is an expert witness and consulting firm, based in Corvallis, OR.  The company brings more than 75 years of collective experience in academic research, university teaching, and forensic testimony to practice areas that include vehicle collisions, premises safety, slips and falls, products liability, worker safety, sports and recreation, patent litigation and criminal matters.

Hayes + Associates Analysis Contributes to Settlement of its First Horse Jumping Case

Hayes+Associates inspection photo of a “fixed” cup used to assemble jumps for equestrian events.

Equestrian eventing, which involves horses and riders jumping over obstacles of various heights and widths, is reported to be the riskiest of all horsing activity. A horse weighs approximately 1,000 pounds, travels up to 40 mph, has the ability to act independently and is by nature unpredictable. The rider often weighs as little as 100 pounds, sits astride the horse with his or her head up to 13 feet above the ground, and continues to travel at the speed of the horse even when the horse’s speed abruptly slows or stops.

Based on statistics from 2001-2003, over 100 thousand non-fatal, horse-related injuries are treated annually in American emergency departments. The most common mechanism of injury is a fall, with fractures and traumatic brain injuries the most common diagnoses.

In 2017, Hayes + Associates was retained on behalf of an Oregon horse jumping facility to investigate head and spinal cord injuries sustained by a 100-pound teenaged rider during a jumping event. In this instance, the rider was propelled forward over her horse’s neck when the horse tripped over an oxer (a jump of two fences placed parallel to one another with a space between to make the jump wider). Failing to clear the jump, the horse’s foreleg landed between the rails of the oxer, its forward momentum was slowed, and the rider continued headfirst beyond the jump, at which point she was struck by the falling horse. The horse was uninjured.

A case was brought by the rider’s family against the eventing venue, alleging that the facility was responsible for the severity of the fall and injuries because of its failure to use a safety feature known as “breakaway cups.”

In oxer construction, the cups holding the ends of the rails to the verticals can be of two types—fixed or breakaway, the latter of which are designed to allow the rails to more easily disengage from the verticals with downward pressure. Both types of cups allow rails to fall away when met with forward, horizontal force of horse and rider. Plaintiff contended that the cups holding the ends of the horizontal rails were not of the breakaway type and that the severity of the fall and injury would have been reduced or avoided if breakaway cups had been used.

Frame by frame analysis of cell phone video of the fall, conducted by H+A Engineering Associate, Kristen E. Lipscomb, Ph.D., and a physics-based reconstruction of the fall and subsequent injuries by Drs. Lipscomb and CEO Wilson C. “Toby” Hayes showed instead that the rails disengaged from the fixed cups as intended when the horse’s legs contacted them, and that the horse’s stumble, fall, and impact with the prone rider would not have been altered by the use of breakaway cups.

As a result, in part because of the Hayes+Associates biomechanical analysis of the incident, the parties settled prior to going to trial. Based on the experience from this first equestrian case, H+A learned that the same fundamental scientific approaches we employ to investigate more traditional cases, like slips and falls and occupant injuries in motor vehicle collisions, can also be used productively, and successfully, in unconventional cases such as rider injuries in equestrian jumping events.

Predicting Osteoporotic Spine Fracture Risk: Hayes+Associates CEO 1985 publication ranked number 23 of 100 most influential publications on spinal fractures since 1953

Hayes+Associates CEO Wilson C. “Toby” Hayes, Ph.D. was recognized in the March 2019 Journal of Spine Surgery as a co-author of one of the 100 most influential spine fracture publications in over half a century of spine fracture research. Hayes led the research team and co-authored the paper Prediction of Vertebral Body Compressive Fracture Using Quantitative Computed-Tomography  when he was Director of the Orthopedic Biomechanics Laboratory at Harvard’s Beth Israel Hospital. The research helped set the stage for using radiographic imaging to assess risk and prevent fractures of the osteoporotic spine.

 In the paper, the authors showed that there were strong correlations between a widely used clinical method for imaging the spine (CT) and both the density and strength of the bone in human cadaveric vertebrae. The results set the stage for later studies that demonstrated similar strong associations between other radiographic imaging methods and fractures seen clinically in living patients. Diagnostic methods based on this early work and subsequent research by others are now used routinely in the prediction, diagnosis and treatment of spinal fractures, including those resulting from osteoporosis.  

 The lead author, Robert J. McBroom, MD, was at the time a research fellow in the Beth Israel laboratory. He is now a practicing orthopedic surgeon in Mississauga, ON, Canada. Additional co-authors were W. T. Edwards, R. P. Goldberg and Augustus A. White III, MD (then the Chairman of Orthopedics at Beth Israel and currently the Ellen and Melvin Gordon Distinguished Professor of Medical Education at Harvard Medical School).

 The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Maurice E. Mueller Endowed Professorship of Orthopedic Biomechanics at Harvard Medical School (Dr. Hayes) and by the Angus Foundation, Wellesley Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (Dr. McBroom).

 Hayes+Associates, Inc. (http://www.hayesassoc.com) is an expert witness and consulting firm, based in Corvallis, OR.  The company brings more than 75 years of collective experience in academic research, university teaching and forensic testimony to practice areas that include vehicle collisions, premises safety, slips and falls, products liability, worker safety, sports and recreation, patent litigation and criminal matters.

Hayes+Associates Biomechanics Analysis of Fatal Bike Crash Contributes to $490,000 Settlement

Photograph showing a dangerous condition created when a bicycle tire becomes lodged in the flange gap between a street trolley track and the road surface.

While overall individual and public benefits to cycling are considerable, the interaction between bicycle tires and street trolley/railway flange gaps are notoriously dangerous and sometimes deadly.

In 2018, the family of Desiree McCloud brought suit against the city of Seattle, claiming that street trolley lines were responsible for their daughter’s death when her front tire became lodged in the flange gap between the street trolley track and the road surface, directly causing her to crash. The family further claimed that the city had been aware of the existence and danger of these gaps but had failed to protect cyclists from them, despite knowledge of an easy fix using rubber flange inserts.

A Seattle Police Department report released at the time of Desiree’s 2016 fatal crash stated, “This incident, though obviously tragic, appears to be the sole result of some form of operator error on the part of McCloud.”

The family retained Seattle law firm of Campiche Arnold, who in turn solicited a report from Hayes+Associates (H+A), a Corvallis, OR consulting firm specializing in injury biomechanics. In the report, H+A Associate, Erik Power, P.E., evaluated the crash based on engineering, rider dynamics and injury biomechanics. Power, a fully-accredited traffic accident reconstructionist, and H+A CEO, Wilson C. “Toby” Hayes, Ph.D., reviewed police and medical records and surveillance video captured moments before the crash. Their conclusion: “The streetcar track grooves were the cause of her bicycle accident and ultimately fatal injuries.”

In a pre-settlement press release, Phillip Arnold described the streetcar tracks as a “lethal bicycle trap.” Armed with the H+A analysis of the crash, Jeffrey Campiche maintained, “the only thing that would turn the bike over like that is the tire in the slot.”

The issue involving bicyclists and street trolley track flange gaps is not a new one. A 2010 suit against the city of Seattle was brought by six cyclists who had experienced crashes on tracks. In that bench trial, the city was found not liable. A Portland, OR survey of 1,520 cyclists revealed that over 67% of riders had crashed as a result of riding over street car lines.

In the McCloud case, the H+A analysis was instrumental in rebutting the police assessment of the incident and helping the parties reach the $490,000 settlement.