What Would You Do?

This past end of December I was involved in a pretty serious accident. It was during a move to another state. My DH was following behind in the moving truck with one DS I had another DS with me.
I just started thinking about all the events again and realized how dumb I was. DS's car seat was not usable anymore, or the totaled car for that matter.
After the tow truck showed up, I was done with police reports, emergency people had okay'ed me and DS. I jumped in the moving truck. There were three seats in the truck. I held DS on my lap and we went on our way to our new apartment.
We were 15-20 minutes from our new apartment.
I just started thinking. Wow, that wasn't very smart of me. Now, granted, I was extremely shaken and not thinking straight. I have to say, we were in a huge truck, we would have had the advantage if any accident had occurred. But I was just thinking, what would you have done? I guess I could have asked the police to drive us, but again, no car seat. We didn't know anyone in our new state to be able to ask them to come rescue us. Nearest family was 4-5 hours away. Just curious what others would have done.

I would use the crashed car seat in the police car. But hey, don't beat yourself up. I used to let DS drive on my lap from church to home (4 blocks) when he was little.

As long as the car seat wasn't broken in any way I'd use it to go to the nearest store and buy one.

I would have looked for the nearest walmart/target and sent DH to get seats.

Wendy

Jessica61624 said:

As long as the car seat wasn't broken in any way I'd use it to go to the nearest store and buy one.

Click to expand...

But then where does mom go? It was a 3 seater moving van. Or are you thinking mom goes with police home and dad drives the kids to the store?

If the seat wasn't broken I would use it and have police drive to nearest wal mart along with DH to get a car seat. If it was completely unusable I would have waited there with police while DH went to get a seat.

Judi said:

But then where does mom go? It was a 3 seater moving van. Or are you thinking mom goes with police home and dad drives the kids to the store?

Click to expand...

I missed the part about 2 kids. I still wouldn't put a kid on my lap. Taxis or officer. I'm surprised the officer let them leave like that.

I am not surprised at all. Knowing the fire fighters and police I work with.

That is a difficult situation and I don't know what I would have done after the mental trauma of an accident like that. It's over with and everyone is okay so it's best to move on and not beat yourself up over this. What is important is to try and form a plan for special circumstances like this so that you have an idea what to do in a situation like this. I know I will be putting some thought in to this so I can have some sort idea of what to do in a similar situation.

Knowing me, I would have had at least one seat somewhere in that moving van. Probably toward the back just because my packing style is large furniture-boxes-various odd size and shaped lightweight items that can't be easily boxed. (that way when we go to unload I can get hand those light items off to kids and get them out of the way while we start on the boxes, then I can set them to unpacking boxes and putting stuff away to keep them out from underfoot while the adults deal with the furniture.)

So I would have gotten a car seat out of the moving van and installed it with DH amd other kid while I rode in the tow truck. If I didn't have another seat, I would send DH off to the nearest Walmart to get one while I had the police wait with me.

I would have used the seat in the police car to get to a safe place, either a store where I could buy a seat, new apartment if it was close, or just somewhere safe to wait, and had a friend install a seat for my kid and come get us. Because, well, I have internet car seat friends all over the country, lol.

Unless you had another seat in the moving van (didn't you end up having the older one in the baby's convertible and baby back in the Keyfit until you got a new seat?)

This assuming I hadn't accepted ambulance transport to the hospital for me or the kid- which knowing your crash I probably would have.

That said, you can't change mistakes you made in the past. All turned out ok, and you can only make a better choice next time. You were under extreme stress, so don't beat yourself up- we all make less-than-ideal choices under those circumstances sometimes.

I was just thinking about it and wondering if Heaven forbid we were ever in such a situation again what the best choice would be.
We did have a Keyfit - somewhere - never even thought to logically pack it.
That's what we ended up using until I could afford another seat.
That police officer maybe wasn't thinking clearly either. The whole situation was irritating. DS had taken off his shoes and he wasn't wearing his coat. Some guys behind me when I wrecked pulled over, and before I could blink they had wrenched the door open, dug out DS (he was buried in stuff packed in my car and we were tipped onto the side he was sitting on) the guys pulled him out of the seat before I could say anything.
I also wasn't wearing my coat. It's a blizzard outside, I'm standing their shivering holding a freaked out freezing cold child and the officer won't let me back in the car to find our coats or blankets but insists I need to stand out there on the side of the freeway and fill out papers? A few minutes after telling me we can't get our coats, he tells me to go dig through the car and find my wallet so he can get my license?
Never even thought to ask the officer if we could ride with him, or to get the seat out of the car, or to go get a new seat.
LOL okay - really don't think I was thinking at all.
Random side story...I remember our car breaking down when I was little. We were a few hours from home. We had my baby nephew with us. We all stayed in our seat belts and the tow truck driver pulled us home. That could have been an option LOL