City: Tiffin, Ohio

County: Seneca County, Ohio

Date: September 19, 2010

Type: Fatal One-Car Accident
 
A fatal accident took place in Tiffin the morning of September 19. A 26-year-old Mansfield man (passenger) and a 29-year-old Tiffin man (driver) lost control of their vehicle when rounding a dangerous curve in the road. The car went off of the road and struck a tree, ejecting both men from the vehicle.

Cars are inherently dangerous objects. Driving in them always has the potential to cause serious injury or death, even when the driver is an excellent driver and is paying full attention to the road. Like I see all too often in my office, ejection accidents often end in death. The original impact on the body can be devastating, as the car comes to a complete stop, but the secondary injury caused by ejection through a window and impact with the ground can be even more deadly. 

On a related note, even at low speeds, I have seen ejection injuries cause incapacitating injuries. While it is true that wearing a seat belt reduces the chances of ejection in my opinion, ejection can and does occur with a seat belt being worn.  The body was simply not designed to handle the forces placed upon it from impacts with stationary objects, like trees, and impacts with the ground.  I know in my own experience driving behind the wheel of a car, it is hard to realize and appreciate how fast you are really going and how almost any speed can cause serious injury. We read 10 mph or 50 mph on the speedometer, but we really don't understand the forces involved with an impact at that speed until we or someone we know or love is involved in such an accident. I have seen clients seriously injured at 5 mph impacts. It just gets worse from there as speeds increase. Our sincere condolences go out the family and friends of those lost in this tragedy.

Seneca County, Ohio (population 58,683) had a total of 1,565 reported accidents in 2008. 7 of these were fatal and 301 were injury crashes (468 total injuries). Tiffin, Ohio (population 18,135) had a total of 413 reported accidents in 2008.


If you've been seriously injured or have lost a loved one in a Tiffin truck / car accident, call the Seneca County auto accident and wrongful death attorneys / lawyers at Chester Law Group at 1-800-218-4243 or order your FREE BOOK entitled The Insider’s Guide to Handling Ohio Accident Claims at www.ChesterLaw.com.