Child strangled with seat belt

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bobandjess99

Senior Community Member
how awful...there has to be more to the story though?
The video said the boy was 5 years old, so even though the incident could have been prevented by a 5 pt, it's not like the child wasn't the appropriate age for a booster, really......
 

Kat_Momof3

New member
you know, I agree... it's not a bad booster age... not ideal, but not bad.

I think this is a reason to, even if a child is old enough they SHOULD know better, lock the seatbelt for booster riders who still have low impulse control.

Obviously, we wouldn't have wanted the mom taking her eyes off the road to keep checking him for doing that and the problem is because it was a locking retractor. Locking it each time would be pretty simple... and from one who has done this in my husband's car... the belt goes back to unlocked when the seatbelt is undone... I have not had to rethread shoulder guides.

Not only did it prevent playing with seatbelts with the boys when they were younger, but now they do it themselves and even Ruthie is now trying to help them (as much as a baby sister can from her own seat) by insisting on grabbing the belts to pull them all the way out along with them. She is only just getting the idea that they can't do that in my van, where we have lightweight locking latchplates.
 

Adventuredad

New member
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2008/12/17/dnt.md.seat.belt.strangulation.wjla

This problem wouldn't have happened if the child were still in a 5 point harness.

IMHO, that's a very short sighted way of looking at things. Overall, boosters are as safe as harnessed seats for kids of appropriate age, usually 4+. This may not be appropriate in case of special needs.

There is not much information regarding the story but I agree with poster above, there must be more to this story.
 

SafeDad

CPSDarren - Admin
Staff member
There have also been concerns about kids being able to strangle themselves with an unused seatbelt, while they are seated in a 5-point harness seat installed with LATCH. Some recommend that you buckle the seatbelt behind a LATCH installed seat (if possible) to avoid any risk.
 

wondering1

New member
Wow. Makes me want to learn what to have on hand to cut the seatbelt strap!

Interesting how this happened right near the exit for "beltsville".

I recently drove by just after an accident involving a vehicle leaving the road from an overpass bridge onto "topside drive". The car plummeted and was overturned...

I'm going to check that the seat we are using with LATCH does have the unused seatbelt out of harms way...
 

Adventuredad

New member
This sounds like something extremely unusual and therefore perhaps not cause for great concern. Still very tragic though. Does anyone know common it is for a child to be strangled in a car by a seatbelt?
 

Evolily

New member
This sounds like something extremely unusual and therefore perhaps not cause for great concern. Still very tragic though. Does anyone know common it is for a child to be strangled in a car by a seatbelt?

Not common, but it's not unheard of with the automatic reactors for a child to get wrapped up in it. I think I've heard similar stories maybe two or three times before.
 

Kat_Momof3

New member
This sounds like something extremely unusual and therefore perhaps not cause for great concern. Still very tragic though. Does anyone know common it is for a child to be strangled in a car by a seatbelt?

it really isn't THAT common... most kids know not to play with their seatbelts.

Still, this is also more common when you combine a child with low impulse control or with parents who didn't train him well at using his booster (not saying they are at fault, just saying they didn't know to train him from doing this as they weren't aware of the danger) with locking shoulderbelt retractors.

seatbelts that only have lightweight locking latchplates only have the shoulderbelt lock in the event of a crash or stopping as one would in a crash, which requires a lot of braking.

Shoulderbelts with ALR retractors, which are great for installing forward facing carseats, on the other hand, lock anytime the belt is pulled out all the way.

So, if the belt is not locked when the child is put in the seat and the child has not been trained or simply (due to immaturity or special needs) does not have the impulse control to leave the belt alone, this is when the danger is very real.

Should the child quietly (so as not detected by a parent who is keeping eyes on the road and hands on the wheel) pull the belt out all the way, then, worse still, wrap it around his neck, activating the locking mechanism, it becomes something that can be lethal to the child.

It's why, until I'm sure beyond any doubt or impulse that my child would not do that EVER... I will lock those types of belts on young booster riders.

I will, on rearfacing restraints (as this type of thing can also happen if a baby/toddler uses the foot to pull the belt... and it can do something less bad than strangling... it could bind around the foot/leg or an arm/wrist, which is still very dangerous) always (and I do advise others to do this) lock the shoulderbelt, even if they use a locking clip or built in lockoffs to prevent the tipping (I simply advise not retracting it to the same degree of snugness you would if not using the locking clip/lockoffs... aka... after you have gotten your knee/hand out of the seat... pull all the way out.... let it retract on it's own... so there's still a tiny bit of slack that would normally be too much, but, since the locking isn't for holding the seat in tight, it's fine for preventing baby/toddler getting injured).

It's why I don't discourage and actually support and encourage my boys, who are now old enough that I would say neither of them needs to for themselves) lock the belts so that their sister (or others, if they aren't in a car where I'm there and know that the other kids won't do it) won't try to bug them by pulling at the belts (or just play with them for another reason).

Now, Ruthie is getting more mature.... I'm not having to lock dh's passenger seat's belt when she rides with him on occasion (she used to pull it to herself with her foot and try to play with it, so I buckled it and locked it...all but the driver's seat will lock, so I just do NOT put her behind the driver's seat... even when buckled, there is belt you can reach)

I think when she's 5, I will be able to not do that, and remind my dh to do that.... If it were a bigger car, I wouldn't have to bother... but in that tiny space, she can reach it, so it's an extra thing to train her about.... and she doesn't have the best impulse control when that behavior is something a certain 8yr old (though he got the message on it not being funny when I told him what all I could happen) thought was funny last year!!
 

Victorious4

Senior Community Member
Not common, but not necessarily unlikely either -- it has happened enough that some vehicle manufacturers' now specify how to reduce the risk in the owner's manuals :twocents:
 

jessclear

New member
This reminds me that I've been meaning to ask about locking the seat belt even when using a lock-off for a RF child. My DD is RF in the middle seat, and I use the lock-offs to prevent tilting. However, she does tend to play with the seat belt with her feet. I would like to lock the seat belt as well, but thought that Britax says lock-off OR seat belt, not both.

Do you think it's ok to lock the seat belt even when using lock-offs to prevent this type of accident? I don't want her foot getting stuck either, yk?
 

TechnoGranola

Forum Ambassador
This sounds like something extremely unusual and therefore perhaps not cause for great concern. Still very tragic though. Does anyone know common it is for a child to be strangled in a car by a seatbelt?
This is the 3rd story I've read of this happening within the last TWO AND A HALF MONTHS! One a 5 year old boy in critical condition (one of the comments implies the child has now died, but I can't seem to confirm that) and the other was a 13 year old boy who died If you read the comments in the article about the 5 year old, there are a couple more stories of this happening but with a better outcome.

I do not like to hear these stories. Sure, you can train your kids to NEVER touch the seat belt, but kids ARE KIDS and sometimes they forget. They don't have locking seat belts in Europe do they? How do they keep child seats secure? Built in lock offs?
 

Victorious4

Senior Community Member
Do you think it's ok to lock the seat belt even when using lock-offs to prevent this type of accident? I don't want her foot getting stuck either, yk?

I would call Britax -- you might want to mention the related Safety Belt Safe USA advice to engage the locking retractor via the handouts for parents section @ www.carseat.org (no hyphen)

If you live in a state that legally requires proper use, then I would simply work on some positive reinforcement for helping kiddo learn to leave the belt alone :)
 

Adventuredad

New member
This is the 3rd story I've read of this happening within the last TWO AND A HALF MONTHS! One a 5 year old boy in critical condition (one of the comments implies the child has now died, but I can't seem to confirm that) and the other was a 13 year old boy who died If you read the comments in the article about the 5 year old, there are a couple more stories of this happening but with a better outcome.

I do not like to hear these stories. Sure, you can train your kids to NEVER touch the seat belt, but kids ARE KIDS and sometimes they forget. They don't have locking seat belts in Europe do they? How do they keep child seats secure? Built in lock offs?

Seat belts are normally not of the locking kind in Europe. I don't know of any cases here where this has happened. My philosophy about seatbelt is be the opposite of never letting my son touch it. I want him to understand the importance and for me there is no other way than letting him use it and explore it. He knows not to play with it or unbuckle when we're driving.

Anyway, I was just curious about how uncommon it was. Really tragic stuff.
 

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