could the death be prevented
... an accident. The seat did not have enough side reinforcement to keep the head and neck in close proximity to head rest, so the head and neck had room to travel side to side enough to cause damage to the victim. Besides Dale Earnhardt kept his seat lower than any other driver for his own comfort and being that low he was perfect line to the steering wheel, during the impact he was thrust into the steering wheel bending it approximately 6 inches. The open face helmet that Dale Earnhardt was wearing didn’t help the situation, NASCAR at this time was trying to get all of the drivers to wear a closed face helmet which would give the drivers more protection from head injuries, by keeping there faces enclosed and more support too the front part of the face including the chin to lessen the blows that could happen in a accident by the padding that wraps there heads inside the helmets to absorb some of the impact that occurs. No head and neck restraints were mandated by the sanctioning body, these restraints keep the head and neck from traveling forward and side to side. There are two devises that were out on the market for use as restraints the Hans device and the Hutchison device that would Connect the helmet to the seat so the head and neck will only have a minimal amount of travel so there wouldn’t be any over travel of the head or neck. And these restraints were not in Dale’s race car so when his car impacted the wall at such a great rate of speed his head and neck had no where to go but through the motions that the force was taking it forward and rebounding back at such a great force that serious injury if not death would be caused. The major cause that caused all of theses to take effect was what they call seat belt dumping, which is wh...