A 17-year-old died on a Texas highway last month after a minor automobile accident, one that local police said she should have walked away from.
Instead, Huma Hanif died within a matter of seconds as the Takata airbag inflator inside the steering wheel of her 2002 Honda Civic exploded, launching shrapnel at her from mere feet away. A piece of metal cut her neck causing her to bleed to death shortly after the low-speed collision.
Hanif is the 11th person to die from injuries suffered as a result of a defective Takata airbag. Hundreds more around the world have been injured by the exploding inflators.
The deaths have spurred millions of airbag recalls worldwide, including 24 million vehicles containing 28 million potentially lethal inflators in the U.S. So far, less than 8 million airbags have been replaced, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
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