Airbags Save Lives And Sometimes Leave Car Logo Bruises

A Twitter thread gone viral shows oddly perfect logos – from Nissan, Mercedes, Chevy, and more – as gnarly forearm bruises.

Photo by: Luis Gael Jimenez

Seyth Miersma

By: Seyth Miersma

Mar 5, 2022 at 8:09pm ET

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Getting into a car accident, even a small one, can be a harrowing experience. Thankfully we live in a time where smart safety engineering has rendered crashes less deadly than ever, but sustaining an injury is still commonplace. Apparently sustaining a really weird injury is more common than you’d expect, too.

Dallas, Texas resident Andrea Juarez, who goes by the Twitter handle @pielcanela learned this the hard way when she was in a crash in her Nissan. Juarez told Motor1.com that her vehicle was struck from the side at a four-way intersection, and walked away with a fractured hand and a rather unmissable contusion on the forearm on the same side.

Even in the cloudy aftermath of the accident, Juarez was clear enough of mind to pause and grab a picture of her remarkable bruise.

As you can see – and apologies to the overly squeamish – the Nissan badge on the wheel was actually embossed on her forearm as the driver’s airbag exploded.

The image of the gnarly bruise has gained a lot of traction on Twitter over the course of just a day, with 163,000 likes and almost 10,000 retweets as of this writing. But perhaps the most interesting forms of engagement are responses from other users who’ve got very similar stories.

In the photo above, you can see that this unlucky driver received a near-perfect reproduction of Hyundai’s “lazy H” logo on his forearm, back in 2016.

Scroll down in the thread of responses, and you’ll find unintentional brands from, well, lots of brands: Dodge, Jeep, Honda, Mazda, Buick, and more are represented in this unexpected outpouring of images.

In fact, there are dozens of folks with very similar injuries and marks, most of them appearing on almost exactly the same forearm location.

Airbags inflate by way of a solid propellant burning rapidly, causing gas to expand and fill a thin nylon bag. Inflation only takes a fraction of a second and moves the airbag outward at speeds of up to 200 miles per hour. Critically, the driver’s airbag must also blow out the central steering wheel panel, which is often decorated by a brand mark or logo.

Now consider how common it is for a driver to steer one-handed, often with the hand at the top of the wheel and the forearm suspended somewhere over the wheel's center, and you start to get a picture of how these bruises can be far less than one in a million.

What do you think?

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Stay safe out there, drivers! Buckle up, put your phone away, and try to avoid the brand bruise altogether.

Lead Photo By: Luis Gael Jimenez

Source: Twitter User @pieIcanela via Chad Kirchner

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