Lilly Allen's Whiplash Injury Is A Rarity: It Didn't Happen In A Car
Lily Allen has been in the news this week after sustaining whiplash in a fall at a London hotel.
The singer and budding fashion designer, who is three months' pregnant, slipped in the lobby of the Wolseley hotel after attending a business meeting to discuss a new range of clothes.
Having thought she had merely injured her wrist, miss Allen carried on as normal but Tweeted the next day that she was in severe pain and had just been diagnosed with whiplash by her doctor.
Miss Allen's misfortune is quite unusual: most people will think of whiplash as a road-accident-related injury: there are 430,000 whiplash injury claims submitted every year to car insurance companies: 75% of all claims. These add GBP14 to the price of every UK motorists' premium.
So what can one do to minimise the risk of suffering one?
Firstly, motorists and their passengers should ensure that their head restraint or headrest is properly positioned. The top of the restraint should be level with the top of the head, and as close to the back of the skull as possible to ensure that it does its job properly in the event of a crash. A mere 25% of males are estimated to use theirs properly, compared with 43% of women. That is a worrying statistic, especially for men.
All modern cars should be fitted with a restraint on each seat, but older cars often only feature them on the front seats. Some really old models don't have any at all! These represent a much greater risk of whiplash if anything should go wrong on the road.
Whiplash can be suffered by both the motorist that causes the crash and the other party/parties involved, so it makes sense to repeat one of the most important rules of driving: keep your distance, especially during bad weather or when the light is poor.
In theory, if everybody maintained a sensible braking distance from the vehicle in front and paid full attention to the road, as they always should, then whiplash injuries would be virtually non-existent.
Drivers should always make sure that their brake lights are working properly too. A recent scam involved malevolent drivers disconnecting theirs to ensure the car behind would crash into them, so they could make a fraudulent claim against them. A couple of cheap bulbs aren't too much to ask to ensure greater safety on the roads.
So what is whiplash, exactly? It's a word that gets used often, but its precise definition is less well known.
It occurs when a sudden movement of the head either tears or stretches the soft tissue in the neck, back or shoulders. Symptoms include pain in the above areas, but can also extend to headaches and pins and needles in the arms and hands. They can appear at any time, from immediately, to a few days after the accident. They can be very painful and debilitating and can often result in time off work, as well as the aforementioned injury claims.
The most serious cases can involve damage to the spinal cord and associated areas, but these are extreme cases. Recovery is usually fairly swift and painkillers are often administered to deal with the pain.
As the number of cars on the road gets greater, the UK's drivers need to ensure that they take extra care of each other, and themselves.
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