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When it comes to purchasing car seats for our little ones, the main priority, of course, is safety. However, with so many different brands, styles, and price points, how do you know which one is the best choice for our most precious cargo? Of course, we don’t want to spend an arm and a leg on something they’ll grow out of fairly quickly, but we also don’t want to put our child’s safety at risk in anyway.
Angela Brown learned the hard way that not all car seats are created equal. Before driving home from a dentist appointment, the mother secured her two daughters into their carseats and headed home. Unfortunately, she got into an accident on the way.
“Travelling home from a dentist appointment in the middle of the day in Rural NSW our SUV slammed into a tree head on at 100kms p/hr. The impact caused our car to flip forward over its bonnet and onto its roof. At the same time the large tree snapped and landed on top of the car trapping us in it.” she wrote on Facebook.
When she came to, her first thought was her daughters. Seeing the damage the accident had done made her see clearly the difference a car seat's positioning can be. One of her daughters was seated in a forward-facing car seat, and the accident caused her to break her back in two places.
“I write this sitting next to my nearly 2 year old (she is two tomorrow) in her hospital bed finally asleep after yet another rough day.” Angel said. The other, who was in a rear facing car seat, suffered nothing else but a bruise. The difference was clear, and there was no way around it.
“As you can see two children in the same car crash restrained properly one with life threatening injuries and the other with non.” she wrote alongside photos of her daughter’s devastating injuries. The photos of the two sisters side-by-side make the situation even more heartbreaking.
“I was always unsure about when turning my babies around but after our crash and the hard evidence we are presented with I will forever rearward face my babies as long as I possibly can. Don't make the same mistake as I did. It could cost you your babies life.” she warned.
Angela hopes her post will help people understand how severe the difference is between a rear-facing and forward-facing car seat, and how much safer one os than the other. Unfortunately, it is uncertain as of right now when Angela’s daughter will recover from the accident.
“So far we have been treating her injury for 3mths with no idea of when she will be fully recovered.” she wrote.
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