Doctors say the pieces of rhinestone emblem flew into her arm at roughly 400 MPH or more than half the speed of sound.
If you have or know someone who has a decorated steering wheel, especially one of those cheap rhinestone/gemstone emblems you place on your car’s steering wheel as decoration, get them off immediately!
Florida resident Logan Walker Browning shared the painful photos post-surgery earlier this week that shows the deep scars she received after a car she was driving that had a decorated steering wheel emblem, had its airbags deploy sending those pieces of decorated steering wheel emblem deep into her arms at, according to his doctor, speeds upwards of 400 MPH.
Check out her eye-opening post below.
“Just a PSA to anyone with something like this on their steering wheel,” Browning’s caption reads. “TAKE IT OFF!”
“When the airbag deployed it went into my arm at 400 mph(per doc) & didn’t even know it was in there! Had multiple X-rays done before getting a small surgery done & then having to cut my arm farther up & deeper to get it out. Take it off now!”
As this slow-motion video demonstrates, air bags are meant to split open in a pre-determined and uniform fashion.
As this, coincidentally, Honda airbag shows, it splits into quarters right in the middle. Steering wheel emblems are engineered and affixed to withstand the force of an airbag explosion.
But, oftentimes with these cheap-o stick-on emblems, all that’s holding the rhinestones onto your steering wheel is a thin layer of adhesive.
Despite safety experts and other car media outlets warning car owners not to decorate your steering wheel cover, they’re, unsurprisingly still available for sale.
Since all modern cars come equipped with airbags, all these examples of blinged out steering wheels all show a potential shrapnel disaster waiting to happen if their airbags where to go off.
As Logan showed, that steering wheel bling is headed straight at you at tremendous force.
Just the thought of those tiny pieces of rhinestone flying into your skin is enough to make you squeam.
As mentioned, if you know someone with a blinged out steering wheel, send them this blog post ASAP.
And, if you’ve got a blinged out steering wheel yourself, rip it out and dump it in the trash.
