Woman's Airbag Deploys In Car Accident. Then She Learns She Has To Flush Herself With Water For 15 Minutes: 'Never Heard This'

A woman who came out of a crash with airbags in her face says she was told something afterward that she had never heard before: Anywhere an airbag touched her skin needed to be rinsed with water for at least 15 minutes—and quickly. 

Her explanation of why has been watched more than 707,700 times, and the medical literature largely backs it up.

Mads (@hertraline), whose channel otherwise runs to stray thoughts from her life, posted the two-minute, 12-second video.

"This is an important car safety PSA that I really feel, like, should be common knowledge, but I don't think it is, because I had never heard this before," she says. She adds one caveat early: "I cannot answer questions about this for legal reasons; I'm so sorry."

What Do You Have To Do If Airbags Touch You In An Accident?

Her instructions are specific about timing and about how easy it is to miss the damage. 

"If you are ever in a car accident, and the airbags deploy, and the airbags touch you anywhere, you have to flush the area that the airbags touched with water for, like, minimum 15 to 20 minutes," she says.

The reason, as she puts it, is chemical. 

"The chemicals inside airbags that make them blow up so fast, to save you from getting smashed into pieces, are highly alkaline," she says. "They can give you actually a really bad chemical burn on your skin, but it won't be apparent right away."

She also has advice for anyone unsure where contact occurred. 

"If you don't know where at all it has touched you, and you're able to stand, just get in the shower for like 20 minutes," she says. Unexplained marks are worth treating as contact. "If you have mystery redness, if you're not sure where it touched you, but you have some red spots on you that look like maybe you got scuffed or scraped, that is probably from your airbag."

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What Is Actually Coming Out Of The Airbag?

The chemistry of airbags is well documented. A case report published in the dermatology journal Cutis describes "a highly corrosive alkaline aerosol composed of sodium hydroxide, sodium bicarbonate, and metallic oxides" released when an airbag fires and notes that deployment "has been the cause of dermatologic injuries including irritant dermatitis, as well as thermal, friction, and chemical burns."

The authors describe a 35-year-old man who developed a blistering reaction after a crash and warn that "if a tear in the meshwork of the airbag occurs, exposure to an even larger amount of powder containing caustic alkali chemicals can occur."

The most disturbing evidence concerns eyes rather than skin. A case report in the Hawaii Journal of Medicine and Public Health opens by stating that "sodium hydroxide (NaOH) powder produced by the inflation reaction can cause significant alkali ocular injury if not irrigated promptly." Its subject, a 47-year-old man, went six to seven hours before his eyes were irrigated and was left with corneal scarring and lasting damage after months of treatment.

That report supports the fifteen-minute timing window. Its authors recommend "immediate irrigation for no less than 15 minutes with no less than 1 liter of eye rinsing solution" and say irrigation "must be continued until pH testing is normalized." The urgency is a property of alkalis, which the paper notes keep causing tissue damage into deeper layers until they are physically removed.

Where Her Advice Needs A Small Adjustment

The published guidance splits slightly by body part, which is worth knowing before you find yourself applying it. For eyes, prolonged irrigation is the established protocol, and speed matters enormously. For skin, the practice point printed alongside the Cutis case is simpler: "After airbag deployment, it is important to immediately cleanse the affected areas of skin with soap and water."

The literature supports her broader recommendation that you wash it off rather than leave it on and that you do it promptly. One commenter asked whether some household product might neutralize the residue. The published protocols do not call for that and describe irrigation with water or saline instead.

‘THAT'S WHY I HAD BURNS?!’

At least one viewer had lived it. "This is real, I had a very bad chemical burn after a crash in 2019," wrote Tessa. 

The thread was then filled with related warnings. Belladonna advised drivers with a larger midsection to tuck the lap belt under the belly rather than across it. 

PingTheAwesome warned against wearing claw clips while driving, on the grounds that the plastic can end up embedded in your scalp. 

A commenter posting as JE made a case for polycarbonate lenses over glass, arguing that a deploying airbag can shatter glasses into the wearer's eyes.

Motor1 reached out to Mads via TikTok direct message for comment. We'll be sure to update this if she responds.