Accident victims’ reactions

Press, 6 March 1984, Page 12

Accident victims’ reactions

PA Wellington Many car accident victims suffer psychological trauma for some time after their accident, an Otago Medical School study has found.

A medical student, Mr Sean Riminton, has found that victims, whether they were injured or not, experience disturbed sleep, recurring recollections of the accident, loss of interest in normal activities, and avoid situations that resemble the event.

Mr Riminton interviewed six victims after he had been involved in two car

accidents. The results of his study are published in the “New Zealand Family Physician,” the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners. Mr Riminton said that after his second accident he constantly recalled the event in colour, with sound, smell, and even the taste of broken glass in his mouth. “These images are fresh and clear to me now two years later. They have since then been frequently restimulated by the smell of crushed foliage, any rolling sensation, being driven on similar roads, and so on,” he

said. Mr Riminton said he had dreams of these images and a phobia about being a passenger in a car on winding, open roads. “For six months afterwards I had lost all expectation of safety in cars and constantly relived the accidents in my imagination. I was frequently angry when drivers did not understand these feelings,” he said. Mr Riminton found that young men spoke with enthusiasm about their accidents. They tended to talk in generalisations or admitted having “lost a bit of sleep

over it” but they did not specify the real effects. “When each was asked if they had ever felt- like crying, the question was almost taken in offence,” he said.

This reaction was in sharp contrast to those of an older woman, aged 62, and an older man, aged 71, who talked of their experience in a subdued manner. Mr Riminton said if doctors increased their professional and social awareness of victims’ reactions to accidents they might be able to give them better all-round care.