Lawrence Patrick may well be considered the father of the crash test dummy. Between 1960 and 1975, while a professor at Detroit's Wayne State University, Patrick allowed himself to be subject to rocket sled rides, crushing blows to the head and body, and other forms of physical abuse in an effort to develop a body of data on how the human body responded in a vehicle accident. One of his students, Harold Mertz, went on to develop Hybrid III, the current world-wide standard crash test dummy.
