If you re in a car crash, the whoosh of inflating airbags could be the last thing you hear for awhile, anyway. Airbags spring out of the dashboard at 200 mph. They can cause skin abrasions and even injure small children.
Doctors say increasing numbers of patients are report losing some or all of their hearing, too.
They theorize that injury to the eardrum is caused by the bags displacing so much air inside the car so quickly. It hits the ear like the burst of a shotgun, often leaving people with a ringing called tinnitus. The hearing loss was most severe when the ear was turned towards an airbag at the time of impact. Johns Hopkins otolaryngologist Dr. Lawrence Lustig says the news is not all bad, however. Most of the time it does go away over a relatively short time period.