Topic: Full bladder can explode in car crash and be fatal?
Momika
The Red and the Green Stamps
posted
I was told today, during a conversation narrowing down whether a car smelled like a Wal-Mart bathroom or a Chevron bathroom, that one should never drive with a full bladder. In a crash the thing can pop like a water balloon and the injury can be fatal.
posted
I heard this one as well when I was in my high school health class. They said that if a person was in a situation where he/she had to brake hard, the seat belt could put pressure on the bladder and cause it to burst. It's one of those reasons that people give as an excuse not to wear seat belts, but I don't know if it's true or not..
ETA: A little clarity
-------------------- "...and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does." ~~Groucho Marx~~ Posts: 392 | From: Virginia | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
I call bull. I think the pressure would, at worst, make you pee yourself. Hmm, if only we could talk to someone with personal experiance....
Oh, wait, me!
In April I was in a car crash with my boy (some chick blew a redlight while speeding). The boy had his femer broken in two places and had to be cut out of the car. Prior to the impact, I reaaaally had to pee. I mean, really, really had to pee. Much later, at the hospital, after the crash, I remembered that I had to pee. Teh bladder was fine... despite a clear as day impression left by both the steering wheel and the seat-belt (yeah, uh, don't sit too close to the steering wheel) and heavy bruising.
So, from experiance, I call bull.
-------------------- "I saw weird stuff in that place last night. Weird, strange, sick, twisted, eerie, godless, EVIL stuff... and I want in."- Homer Simpson Posts: 2161 | From: Delaware | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Bladder injuries occur as a result of blunt or penetrating trauma. The probability of bladder injury varies according to the degree of bladder distention; therefore, a full bladder is more likely to become injured than an empty one.
Think about the water balloon analogy. Even if the balloon isn't knotted closed, what is going to happen if something suddenly impacts the balloon? A soft impact might squish it a little (bruising) and perhaps expel some liquid, but a hard slam is going to cause damage. Only so much liquid can be expelled at a time, so the effect is going to be more like an impact on a tied-off balloon.
I wouldn't necessarily say the bladder would "pop," but there's definitely going to be some damage due to the organ being at least partially full.
posted
Of course. All of the organs can rupture. Some are more fatal than others.
If you've ever seen someone blow up an animal bladder (You haven't? What do they teach in the schools these days?) you'd see that it is indeed just like a big baloon.
I don't see this as an excuse not to wear your seatbelt. I'd bet that hitting the arm of a seat, a steering wheel, or any other object in the car would be far more likely to rupture not only your bladder but plenty of other vital organs.
Anyway, we all know you have nothing to fear in a car accident as long as you are (were?) wearing clean underwear! Posts: 4922 | From: Kyoto, Japan | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
As an excuse to not wear a seatbelt, it fails for other reasons as well. I would think a ruptured bladder easier to live through and easier to repair than what happens when skull meets windshield. Buckle up, folks!
-------------------- It doesn't matter if you're wrong.. Be Wrong Loud! Posts: 398 | From: Fallon, NV | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
I reckon this is bollocks ! I've never personally heard of a case where traumatic bladder rupture in a car accident was significant. If they exist they must be exceedingly rare. Regardless of how full it is, other things in the abdomen like the liver, spleen and aorta are much more "rupturable" and will probably go first and kill you.
Posts: 2 | From: London | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
The thing is, the bladder has an emergency pressure-relief valve already: the urethra! Think like an engineer: what is the "failure mode" of a "water balloon" where there is already an opening only held closed by a set of muscles? Will the sides of the balloon tear...or will the muscles slip and let the water out exactly the way nature intended?
I would think that any impact that is powerful enough to cause the bladder to tear would also have terrible effects on the large and small intestines and the supporting enteric structures.
Finally...why would a burst bladder be fatal? The thing isn't all that vascular; it doesn't circulate a lot of blood. The urine itself is mildly toxic, but sterile; a burst colon is a *LOT* more dangerous because it poses a vastly larger threat of infection.
Silas
Posts: 16801 | From: San Diego, CA | Registered: Sep 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Silas Sparkhammer: The thing is, the bladder has an emergency pressure-relief valve already: the urethra! Think like an engineer: what is the "failure mode" of a "water balloon" where there is already an opening only held closed by a set of muscles? Will the sides of the balloon tear...or will the muscles slip and let the water out exactly the way nature intended?
What Astra said. Press firmly on the water balloon and water will squeeze out the hole. But slam it with a 2x4 and water wont squeeze out fast enough it will just burst.
I think the answer is that while such injuries are possible, they are both rare and generally survivable, so it should really be at the bottom of your list of concerns about a car accident. If your bladder is that full though, you should probably arrange a pit stop just for your own comfort.
Posts: 2018 | From: Santa Barbara, California | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
Mmmm well I'd personally go with a 'no' but I came across this tidbit while googling.. For this I look at Nocturnal's story. http://aol.menshealth.com/cda/article/0,2823,s2-5-60-0-847,00.html Check out the Plane crash part. A plane crashes alot faster than a car though, unless your a make believe Daytona driver
Out of curiosity anyone ever tried any of the stuff on that site? or heard of it? I remember a friend's father once taught us how to work out which way was north using an analog watch Posts: 116 | From: Australia | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
Like Nocturnal, I was once in an accident when I had a full bladder. In fact, I remember thinking just before the accident how happy I'd be to get to my destination and pee.
I didn't suffer any bladder-related injuries, didn't even pee myself. The full bladder did, however, add to my discomfort during the time I was waiting for the ambulance and being treated in the ER. Oooo.
Edited to clarify: I was not without injuries(hence the ambulance and ER).
-------------------- How homophobic do you have to be to have penguin gaydar? - Lewis Black Posts: 8322 | From: Columbus, OH | Registered: Aug 2005
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In the paper cited, two subjects suffered ruptured bladders following an RTA (#5 & #15), a third patient (#14) suffered from urethral damage.
Posts: 3100 | From: London, UK | Registered: Nov 2001
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posted
Of course a bladder could rupture if there is too much violence involved. It is also probably more likely the more content it has. It is hard to argue about this.
What is interesting, however, is that it probably takes a hell of a lot of force for that to happen. Remember that most of the inner organs in that region is deformable to some extent, so it will find some space unless everything is more or less flattened. My guess is that if you suffer enough trauma for the bladder to burst, you will have far worse worries.
I doubt the seatbelt even makes a difference here. It rests over the hips, so unless the hips are broken, there will not not be much deformation (unless you are exceedingly fat, in which case it's the fat that deforms). They even recommend that pregnant women (and most likely pregnant men if that should ever happen) wear seat belts, and they have a much larger "bladder" with a much more fluid and much more fragile content.
There is no doubt about it, you are always better off wearing a seatbelt than being without one. That said, it's a good idea to have a seatbelt cutter mounted within easy reach, because once the crash is over, you may want to get out of the car even if the mechanism fails. Also, if you are first at an accident site, always take of the seatbelts of anyone still in the car as they can become a strangulation hazard, especially for uncouscious persons. Don't let this scare you off seatbelts, if the crash was bad enough to knock you unconsciuos with a belt, you would most likely be dead without it.
Lots of statistics and research can be found at the Swedish National Road Traffic Institute, the world leaders in traffic research.
The site is in Swedish, but many of the publications are in English and they are on the page reached through the link above and through the page numbers at the bottom. There are probably information there to bust or confirm almost any traffic myth.
-------------------- /Troberg Posts: 4360 | From: Borlänge, Sweden | Registered: Nov 2005
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