July 2, 2001
Research: Causes and Prevention
Question from Martinez, California, USA:
My 16 year old daughter was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes 11 months after being involved in a serious accident. How likely is it, or how difficult to determine, that her diabetes was caused by possible damage to her pancreas during this accident?
She was a pedestrian, in a crosswalk, struck by a car doing about 30-35 miles per hour. She was thrown into the windshield, causing a cut (requiring stitches) to her head. She tumbled up and over the car and landed behind it, and 40 feet outside of the crosswalk she started in. Six weeks after the accident, additional injuries were discovered — a fractured pelvis in three places.
She has no history of diabetes on either side of the family (mom or dad), and my daughter did not have any of the major viruses I’ve read may be at fault in certain instances.
Can pancreas damage be detected? If so, how? Could it be proved that this accident was the cause? Or, did she have a pre-disposition to the disease and would have contracted it anyway at some other time, because of some other stimulus (i.e. a virus)?
I would really like to nail down specific answers to these questions, as I am considering re-opening the lawsuit filed against the responsible party.
Answer:
I would consider it nearly impossible that the diabetes was caused from the accident. To do so would have required nearly total destruction of the pancreas, a fact easily diagnosed by the attending physicians while in the hospital. I have seen children who nearly died from pancreatic injury and not develop diabetes.
LD
