Selected Letters and Email

NANCY H. MARSHALL
WILLIAM H. MARSHALL
101 ROLFE ROAD
WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA 23185

Mr. Philip R. Recht, Deputy Administrator
NHTSA/USDOT
400 Seventh Street, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20590-0001

Dear Mr. Recht: April 29, 1999
I am returning the questionnaire you sent me, along with this personal letter to you. I must say, first of all, that I am thunderstruck to receive an unsolicited piece of material from NHTSA, since it took more than 6 months for your organization to send me a form to permit me to have an on-off switch for the air bag in my car.

I twice faxed the request to the number provided but heard NOTHING. I finally contacted Senator Robb, and his intervention produced the form in about 3 weeks. About 6 weeks later, I received a second form, apparently as a reply to the faxed requests, but more than 6 months after it had been requested.

I immediately submitted my request and had the response to permit the installation of the switch in 3 weeks. Then I began the long process of trying to find someone to do it. My long-term dealer, from whom this car was purchased, would not touch it. Neither would any other dealers. In virtual random calling of various numbers, someone gave me the number of the company, which produced the on-off switch. The receptionist there provided the number for Sensible Solutions, and I immediately contacted Margaret and Robert Brown. We made an appointment for them to come to my home, which they did, and Mr. Brown installed the switch in my car in my driveway.


I have taken some time and pains to see that this information is widely disseminated. One of the goals in my remaining life is to see that as many as possible of these hideous devices are deactivated, and before many more people are killed and maimed by them. Perhaps when the trauma centers are filled to overflowing and the cost of keeping turnips alive wftose lives have been "saved" by airbags becomes seriously visible these savage devices will be abandoned.

the obvious problem is that these devices were not by any means sufficiently tested on live human beings in crashes BEFORE they were made mandatory. Now neither the government nor the manufacturers have the least idea how to deal with the monster they have created. It is beyond comprehension that children can buy guns in drugstores but that i cannot buy a car in the U.S. that does not have these horrendous devices.

I hope to live to see the U.S. government, including the NHTSA and all the auto manufacturers in this country, sued in a huge class action suit to force the abandonment of these insane devices. I strongly support such action and will be at the head of any line that forces people to take a good hard look at the terrible damage these devices are inflicting. If you think being turned into a turnip is saving a "life", then there is no help for you or for the organization, which employs you. And to think that all this insanity is being supported by my tax dollars.

Yours sincerely,
William H. Marshall



Email
Date 7/19/99
From ECP04
To BrownRMSV

To whom it may concern:

January 1996 I was a 42-year-old husband and father to 2 daughters. I had worked my way up the corporate ladder to a position in corporate UPS managing the diagnostic database for the internal help desk. I had a wonderful family, job and life. Everything was going the way it is expected. We were preparing our oldest daughter for college while our youngest was attending school in North Arlington. I had purchased a Ford Crown Victoria as a large luxury safe vehicle for my commuting to Mahwah and Morristown. Early December I had just returned from a short vacation skydiving in Florida before preparing for UPS peak season.

February 8th of 1996 was my youngest daughter’s birthday. Before the party was going to start a friend of ours needed a ride from our house to the nearest bus stop in order to reach Port Authority in New York to make a connection to Ohio. 'The streets were wet however there wasn’t any snow on the roadway. I took the Crown Victoria and drove her twelve blocks to the bus stop. There we waited for the New York bus to arrive. After we said our good byes I turned around and headed for home. Everything was in town on city streets and I was returning on the same streets I had just traveled to get to the bus stop. Because of this fact, I never exceeded 35mph in the city.

On a two-lane road with a slight up-hill incline my vehicle hit black ice. Considering my rate of speed and my confidence in my vehicle, the last thing I remember was thinking that hitting the curb was going to throw my wheels out of alignment. Evidently the vehicle hit the curb and the air bag deployed and broke my neck at a C4 or cervical 4 level. The very next thing I remember was waking up on a hospital table alone in an examination room and I heard familiar people talking about me. I decided to get up and find out what they were talking about. That was when I first discovered that nothing responded from my neck down. I was fully under the impression that they must have used some drugs and this was very temporary. I had been in hospitals prior to this and felt comfortable that you go into a hospital for a period of time and after the problem is corrected you leave healthy and without problems. I was able to see most of my body so I was confident that nothing was seriously injured. My next recollection came in St. Joseph's hospital in the ICU unit. I was still unable to move anything below my neck and still I was comforted that this was temporary. I spend several months there where I received a vent inserted into my neck; because of my lack of activity pneumonia had set in and collapsed one of my lungs. I was constantly in a cervical collarand watched by nurses and respiratory technicians 24/7. 1 still was not under the impression that this was permanent.

After leaving St. Joseph's I was transferred to Kessler Institute of Rehabilitation in West Orange. While I wasn’t aware of it at the time, I was assigned the same people as the most famous spinal cord injury victim, Christopher Reeve. If you have read his book "Still Me", I was totally familiar with everyone he mentions. I was also assigned Dr. Kirshblum as my primary person.


At Kessler, my lungs kept filling with fluid and required a machine to remove the fluid. I still had absolutely no movement or feelings below my neck. Another several months were spent in Kessler with occupational and physical therapy as a daily routine. My primary care giver is my wife- and she had to learn how to take care of me.

I have improved slightly my movements in my arms and shoulders. I have almost no hand movement at all.

In that moment on February 8th of 1996 1 went from a successful businessperson, provider for my family and husband to my wife to a person that requires assistance to do anything. I can’t scratch my nose or comb my hair. Two people are required to move me from the bed to either a power wheelchair or a shower chair.

This is all because of an air bag. After seeing the damage to the vehicle after the accident anyone would assume that no one could have had any injury in that large safe automobile because the damage on the driver’s side is negligible. Had the air bag not deployed I probably would have had a chipped tooth or maybe a bloody nose. Instead of that I have become a burden to my family and to the government and Social Security Department.

There is a saying with the people that have suffered spinal cord injuries that everyone else is a "TAB" and I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant. It means Temporarily Able Bodied person. It happened to me in an instant, so everyone is a temporarily able bodied person because anyone can have an air bag do the same damage to you or your family. Yours like mine would be devastated.

Thank you for your time however short it may be as long as you're driving an automobile equipped with an air bag.



The following letter was published in the 3/8/99 issue of Automotive News:

A letter to car dealerships and service centers from the mother of Shawn Simpkins, who was killed by a second generation airbag, August 1, 1998

Please. Help us to have a choice! If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem. Airbags are not safe yet. I know this better than you, so please hear my plea.
Who is to decide when they are needed? You? The government? The manufacturers? No! The owncr/driver. It should be our choice- Needed where or when?

In a parking lot at 10 mph or on a busy expressway? It should be our choice, on request.

I am not suggesting to do away with airbag, but it will be many years before they are safe for all occupants all of the time. To be able to maximize Our Safety by turning an airbag ON or OFF should be our choice.

My son Shawn. Died August 1. 1998. His '98 Dodge Dakota's safety system killed him. He- suffered "brain trauma" from a new "depowered" airbag.

The only mark on him was the airbag mark. He wasn't a small child. Shawn was my child, 16 years old, and 5'6" 146 lbs. He chose to wear his seat belt but he could not turn his airbag ON or OFF. Shawn loved fishing, hunting, skateboarding. And riding his dirt bike. He was good in art and was planning to attend a graphic arts school. Shawn didn't have a choice. He won't graduate, have a family, or enjoy his life.

Airbags arc dangerous. Please, consider how you can help. Even if you will not install ON-OFF switches, at least help your customers find an installer...

Had Shawn had a choice...... ?

Mary Ann Simpkins


Dakota Air Bag Killing

Page 32 of the March 8th issue of Automotive News has an open letter from Mary Ann Simpkins about the air bag killing of her 16 year old son in their 1998 Dakota pickup.

Shawn Simpkins was driving the pickup with his seat belt on when he had a one car accident that ended with an off-center right-front hit to a tree - probably at about 26 mph. The only mark on Shawn's body was the small air bag abrasion on his chin, where the air bag snapped his head back hard enough to break the brainstem. This was a Second Generation (20% to 35% de-powered) bag but it was still fatal to Shawn.

I have personally examined the vehicle, and there is no intrusion to the driver's side compartment. This should have been a fully survivable accident, with only minor injuries as the result. Others who have examined the vehicle came to the same conclusion as I did. Shawn should only have received bumps and bruises, except for the deadly air bag.

NHTSA's Special Crash Investigations website lists his injuries as caused by the air bag, though they used very obtuse wording for the injury "Axonal injury to the brain", perhaps to confuse the average reader into not understanding the drastic and fatal nature of the air bag hit to his head. (Seehttp://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/ncsa/NHTSA.html and listing #84.)


The Simpkins family was opposed to buying air bags in this vehicle, but were forced to do so by NHTSA and Congress. This forced purchase cost them their son.

EVERY vehicle owner deserves the unrestricted right to not buy air bags, or to have them disabled on request, for whatever reasons they want, by whatever method they want. It is morally wrong for NHTSA and Congress to have the power to force unwilling people to run the very real risks of being killed or maimed by explosive devices that some people do not want to buy or use in their vehicles.

Regards,


Jim Walker