This is why I'm "crazy" about carseats and seatbelts

As many of you know, I'm a member on a carseat forum. Recently there was a car accident involving a woman who is a CPST (Child Passenger Safety Technician...one of the experts who checks carseat installation). So word spread quickly among the different carseat boards. The woman's name is Casey and she posted a quick version of her story from the hospital. She's since been released and has written up everything that she remembers about the crash. It's every parent's worst nightmare. But because her children were properly restrained, they all walked away from the accident with only minor bruises. Casey, her husband, and her brother all had a few injuries, but they will also "walk away" from the accident. The people in the other car weren't so lucky. There were 6 people in a vehicle not equipped to safely hold 6 people. Only 2 of them were wearing seatbelts (2 of the survivors). 3 of the occupants died-- 2 of them were kids (15 and 11). All 3 that died were brothers. (The video of the newscast I posted below doesn't have all the correct info....they said all but 1 person died. There were 3 survivors. The story of the mother of the 3 boys is here.)

Here is her quick version of the story:
"We took the family camping this weekend. We were towing the boat. Nobody was in front of us. About 15 minutes after we left the campground, we were coming up on some cars heading the opposite direction. When we almost passed the first vehicle, a 4 door Jeep Wrangler swerved into our lane and hit us head on. We were going about 50 mph, not sure how fast they were going.

The other vehicle went into a ditch. There were 6 people in the other vehicle. I think 3 of them died (although the news story I posted says all but 1 died...). Only one person in that vehicle was wearing a seat belt.

We stopped right at the edge of the ditch. We were all wearing our seat belts, and the girls were all properly restrained.

Dan broke his leg and had surgery to put a titanium rod in it. He also had a big gash on his other leg. He's ok, he's in my room with me. My brother is in another hospital, he broke his wrist and had surgery. I am OK... I was in immense pain, they did scans on me and there is a little bit of fluid (not blood) in my abdomen. I had a huge gash on my right hip from the seat belt buckle, it required about 15 stitches. I have some very serious seat belt burn. Its very painful. Im weak, and my neck/shoulders/back are still sore. I will most likely be discharged tomorrow, we'll just have to see how I'm doing.

The girls? Walked away from the crash, which IMO was pretty much a miracle. They were all properly restrained (Kelsey in the 3rd row in a high back turbo booster. Sarah in the 2nd row in a ff Marathon. Megan next to Sarah in a rf Marathon. I was sitting in the 2nd row. Kelsey has a little bit of belt burn on her shoulder, but she's not complaining. Sarah has it on her shoulders from her harness, she is not complaining. Megan doesn't have a single mark on her. We are all extremely lucky to be alive right now.

Here is a link to the video. We are the first story. We aren't sure what is going to happen now though."

And here is the link to her longer write-up of before, during, and after the accident. It's pretty incredible. As a warning to some, she goes into detail about the experience and what she saw, so there are some pretty sad parts.

People sometimes tease me because I'm so protective when it comes to car safety. But the reality is that car accidents are the #1 killer of children. (And they rank pretty high in adult fatalities too.) If there are measures I can take to prevent any of my children from dying in a car accident, I'm going to go above and beyond the minimum requirements so that my kids are as safe as possible. I was going to do another post on carseat safety soon -- specifically related to boosters. This just gave me more motivation. Look for that in a few days.

I'm glad that Casey was well-informed about carseat safety and because of that, her children's lives were saved. I wish more parents cared as much as Casey did.