18 mo old in hospital in critical condition

snowbird25ca

Moderator - CPST Instructor
I haven't found a link for it yet - might not be on the google bot yet and this just happened last night in my city...

A car ran a red light, t-boned another car, then pushed into a tree sideways. (So frontal impact, then side impact.) There was an 18mo old in the car improperly restrained, no vitals on scene & resuscitated in ambulance. He's now in critical condition in hospital with back injuries. I'm betting he was ff'ing, and had he been rf'ing and properly restrained he'd have been much better off. :( (The news has reported him being improperly restrained, and it's the reason why our seat check was even busier than expected tonight, so that's how we know he wasn't restrained properly.)

Poor little guy, very sad for him and his family. Dad is facing charges in the collision, mom and 2 older siblings were also in the car but are doing better than him.

edited: I just saw the story on the news again and he actually t-boned the other vehicle and then they went sideways into the tree. I corrected that above too.
 
ADS

MsFacetious

New member
I pray everyday my niece isn't the next statistic. Please let me know if you find a link on it so that I can share it with my MIL.
 

snowbird25ca

Moderator - CPST Instructor
I can't tell for sure what car seat it was, but you can tell it's not reclined and looks to be a combination seat, so baby was almost definitely ff'ing. Too bad they didn't mention anything about the importance of rf'ing on the news. Too many parents turn their kids way too soon around here - many before their 1st b-day.
 
Last edited:

chickenman

New member
if they ever release the specifics of how the car seat was used improperly it would be intresting to read , as well as what condition the 18 month will have if any (spinal injury ) or others
 

snowbird25ca

Moderator - CPST Instructor
if they ever release the specifics of how the car seat was used improperly it would be intresting to read , as well as what condition the 18 month will have if any (spinal injury ) or others

I doubt we'll get much more info about the back injury than what we have already... typically these things hit the news, kids condition or whoever's is updated first couple days, then family asks for privacy and it just slowly sinks under the radar until somebody goes to court on charge...

From what they've said, it sounds like at the very least the harness wasn't tightened properly.

The dad actually initially ran away from the scene... then came back visibly shaken. I guess shock can do strange things to people, but to run away from your car full of family? Family who is all severely injured but he's able to walk away? Makes me wonder if he was drunk - although that wasn't mentioned and it typically is... I dunno, it's just sad.
 

ThreeBeans

New member
"Improperly restrained" doesn't mean forward facing for an 18 month old. It means he wasn't in a carseat at all, or the straps weren't buckled, or the seat wasn't buckled to the car.
 

LuvMyGirls

New member
I can't tell for sure what car seat it was, but you can tell it's not reclined and looks to be a combination seat, so baby was almost definitely rf'ing. Too bad they didn't mention anything about the importance of rf'ing on the news. Too many parents turn their kids way too soon around here - many before their 1st b-day.
"almost definitely rf" or almost definitely ff?
 

snowbird25ca

Moderator - CPST Instructor
"Improperly restrained" doesn't mean forward facing for an 18 month old. It means he wasn't in a carseat at all, or the straps weren't buckled, or the seat wasn't buckled to the car.

Yes, sorry, I wasn't trying to give the impression that if he was buckled properly ff'ing it was improperly restrained. I must've gotten my words jumbled a little. :eek:

The news said he was improperly restrained - and on a seperate note, I'm betting that he was ff'ing based on his injuries, age and views of the car seat.

The news & police most definitely would not have considered an 18mo old properly harnessed in a ff'ing seat improperly restrained. So whether the seat was installed incorrectly or whether he was buckled incorrectly, there was some sort of misuse going on. Could've been a number of things, I'm not sure.

I was really just saying that had he been rf'ing, he probably would've fared much much better.

"almost definitely rf" or almost definitely ff?

Almost definitely he was ff'ing. Did I say rf'ing in my earlier post. ? :rolleyes: Sorry. I corrected that in my other post too. Thanks for catching that for me... (Seat looked upright, and based on age and what the norm is around here - and life threatening spinal injuries, it's almost a definite that he was ff'ing.)

Here's one of the links that the pp had posted:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/2007/08/08/seat-charges.html
Edmonton police are investigating whether an 18-month-old boy who suffered severe spinal injuries in a car crash Tuesday night was secured properly in his child car seat.

I haven't actually read the story yet or any of the other links, so there could be more details there that I'm not aware of. I only know what was being said on the news.
 

snowbird25ca

Moderator - CPST Instructor

lynsgirl

New member
I doubt we'll get much more info about the back injury than what we have already... typically these things hit the news, kids condition or whoever's is updated first couple days, then family asks for privacy and it just slowly sinks under the radar until somebody goes to court on charge...

From what they've said, it sounds like at the very least the harness wasn't tightened properly.

The dad actually initially ran away from the scene... then came back visibly shaken. I guess shock can do strange things to people, but to run away from your car full of family? Family who is all severely injured but he's able to walk away? Makes me wonder if he was drunk - although that wasn't mentioned and it typically is... I dunno, it's just sad.

A mom and (now former) tech that quite a few of us know, either IRL or online or both, lost her first two daughters in a fatal collision and her then-dh (in shock and injured) managed to get out of the vehicle and was found wandering around in the woods near the scene. I really do think it's a shock thing. He'd looked back and seen their youngest daughter (broken neck, died almost right away and their older daughter had landed up near the front seat) and that's when he kicked his way out of their van :(.

She does not mind her story being shared:
Joyce's story
 

snowbird25ca

Moderator - CPST Instructor
"Improperly restrained" doesn't mean forward facing for an 18 month old. It means he wasn't in a carseat at all, or the straps weren't buckled, or the seat wasn't buckled to the car.
agreed.

Yes, I'd clarified that a couple posts up. I hadn't intended it to sound that way. I put two seperate thoughts into the same sentence and accidentally made them sound related when that wasn't my intention at all.

(Just saying this again in case someone misses the post up above.)

The stories have been clear that the harness wasn't tight enough.

As for the ff'ing, that's not improperly restrained for an 18mo old, just likely contributed to his injuries considering the nature of them - you know?

Although I don't know the weight of the 18mo old it's possible he didn't weight enough to be ff'ing... but still, that wasn't my intent in my comment. Sorry to those I offended. :eek:
 

lynsgirl

New member
Although I don't know the weight of the 18mo old it's possible he didn't weight enough to be ff'ing... but still, that wasn't my intent in my comment. Sorry to those I offended. :eek:

Just wanted to let you know that I was not offended by anything you posted regarding this :love:. I was only commenting on the dad running off because it struck me that that had also happened w/the dad in the other situation I posted about.
 

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