Accidents can happen to anyone at anytime.
We as humans are liable to make errors. Minutes mistakes can lead to big destruction. Every year, hundreds of people die in road accidents and many thousands of them get injured. Road accidents are caused 95% due to human error and rest of it due to others. It doesn’t matter how safe we are driving. Other Factors like fellow drivers, weather conditions, etc. play an important role.
It was a pleasant afternoon. Angela, with her husband and two daughters, was going to the dentist. All of sudden, their SUV lost the steering balance and went off track hitting a big tree. The car flipped and landed upside down.
The family thought it was over and suddenly a big tree fell on their car. They were trapped in the car. When Angela regained her consciousness, she heard her daughters screaming.
When she thought both of her daughters seemed okay, the position of the car seats was totally different. One was facing the back while other was facing the front.
The daughter who sitting in the front-facing car seat sustained a deep cut on her forehead but the daughter sitting on the rear-facing car seat possessed no visible injuries.
The daughter who was severely injured was rushed to the hospital. It was the time when Angela Brown and her husband was hit with a devastating news.
Angela knew that her daughter was injured but she had no idea how badly! Her daughter sustained critical injuries, torn ligaments, and two broken vertebrae. The doctors were shocked to see a kid suffering from such injuries. They told the parents that it is difficult for their daughter to make it.
However, her daughter becomes one of the youngest to receive Halo Brace Treatment. The other daughter who was sitting in a rear-facing car seat sustained minute injuries.
This led Angela to make a conclusion that positioning the car seats could really make a big difference. Three months after the accident, Angela decided to tell her story via Facebook. She wanted to tell other parents about their accident and how serious damage can be avoided.
She explained how her normal day turned into a disaster and requested others to not make the same mistake as her. She said that her daughter’s life wouldn’t have turned into a mess if she had taken things into consideration.
She said she wasn’t sure about the idea of turning the seats of their daughters around, but that accident proved her wrong. When she wrote the post, her daughter was still in the treatment.
As per the new guidelines posted by American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), it is advised that the parents should always seat their children in rear-facing car seats until they turn 2.
However, parents even today don’t follow the guidelines and it can turn out to be very dangerous. Dennis Durbin, who proposed this policy said that parents keep on transitioning from one stage to another and it can prove to be very risky. The parents should keep their children in rear-facing car seats up until their children outgrow the limits of their current stage.
The reason why rear-facing seats are recommended is because it provides safety to the child’s head, neck, and spine and provides support in case of accidents. On the other hand, he said that larger children can use a front-facing seat with a harness instead of a booster.
Angela would have been unaware of these new policies but she did a brave job by taking her story to the internet. She may have helped many parents from doing the same mistake as her.
Do you have any idea about making the car kid-friendly? How you prefer traveling with your kids in a car? What are the safety measures you prefer while you are driving with your kids? Comment your answers!