I was on duty when we received a request to respond to a head-on collision approximately 30 miles from Tulsa, Okla. En route to the scene it was reported by our communication center that this was a mass-casualty incident involving several vehicles. As we observed the scene from the air, we could see many victims lying on the highway and by the roadside. We hoped none had been ejected from their vehicles.
When we arrived, our crew was directed to an area where many of the victims were being stabilized. My partner and I were asked to assist with a young man who was in serious trouble. As I stepped into the ambulance I could see that he was already receiving cardiopulmonary resuscitation. As I moved in to help, I suddenly froze. I recognized the young man’s shoes. They belonged to my 17-year-old son, Nik. In seconds my whole world crashed in around me. Nik was so gravely injured, I knew he was not going to survive.
Three of the four teenagers in the vehicle Nik was riding in were not wearing their seat belts. Two of the three unbelted passengers were killed: the driver and my son, who was in the back seat. The other unbelted back-seat passenger was ejected and seriously injured. The front-seat passenger, the only one wearing his seat belt, walked away with minor cuts and bruises.
I lost my son on Mother’s Day weekend because he was not wearing his seat belt. Our family–and the families of more than 9,000 sons, daughters, mothers and fathers who will die this year because they were unbelted–will never be the same.
It is not just the families who suffer. The community pays a price as well. Those of us who buckle up are paying in higher health-care and insurance costs for those who don’t. The hospital costs for treating unbelted crash victims are 50 percent higher than those for belted crash victims. And 85 percent of those inpatient costs are paid by society, not by the individual. Any way you look at it–the loss of human life or the financial strain on society–the results are catastrophic.
Despite the recent focus on the terrible problems of drunken driving or on newly identified problems such as aggressive driving, increasing seat-belt use is still the single most effective thing we can do to save lives on America’s roadways. As a flight nurse and an emergency health-care giver, I have witnessed the difference a seat belt makes. The most satisfying part of my job is the opportunity to help save lives. The most difficult part is seeing unbelted children and adults who have been violently ejected from their vehicles or thrown into the windshield and knowing that their terrible injuries or death could have been prevented. The only reason Nik died was that he was not wearing his seat belt.
Based on my firsthand experience, I tried to drill into my four children the importance of wearing seat belts. When Nik was learning to drive, I had him take a driver’s ed course sponsored by my auto-insurance company. We even made a visit to a young man recovering in an intensive-care unit who is now a quadriplegic because he wasn’t wearing his seat belt.
I did everything I could think of to get Nik to buckle up. Unfortunately, the threat of serious injury or even death is not enough to persuade some people–especially young people, who believe they are invincible–to always buckle up.
The only proven way to get people who can’t be convinced through public education to use a seat belt is a real threat of a ticket and fine. Belt use is about 15 percent higher in states with ““standard’’ enforcement laws, where police officers treat failure to buckle up like every other traffic offense. In states with weak ““secondary’’ enforcement, officers must first observe a motorist committing a traffic violation before ticketing for failure to use a belt. I feel certain that if Nik had known there was a real chance of getting stopped and given a ticket for not wearing his seat belt, he would still be alive today.
Ironically, in the months before my son’s death, I had joined my local Safe Kids Coalition to help increase belt use by working to pass a standard belt law. While the challenge seemed great–belt use in Oklahoma was 48 percent–we were encouraged by the experiences of other states. Louisiana, which recently upgraded its belt law to standard enforcement, saw its belt use jump from 50 to 68 percent in just three years.
Through my advocacy work I also learned how weak belt laws leave innocent young children at risk. Adults who don’t buckle up are telling children it’s all right not to use a seat belt. More than 75 percent of the time, when the driver is unbelted, children and other passengers in that vehicle will be unbelted as well. If every state in the nation adopted a standard-enforcement law, we could save 1,900 lives and prevent more than 49,000 injuries a year.
After my son’s funeral, I heard that Oklahoma’s proposed belt law was in trouble. So I went to Oklahoma City to meet with the governor and several legislators. I told them my story and pleaded with them to do what they could to pass this bill. It passed, and I now know that it will save lives.
I have since told my story to the Ohio legislature, which is considering a stronger belt law similar to Oklahoma’s. I plan to keep telling it because I think it’s time we made protecting lives with seat belts as important as other traffic laws.
I know that when I go back to my job, each time I fly to a crash scene I will be reminded of the terrible day when I lost my son. But I also will carry a little hope that Nik’s life can make a difference. And that by telling his story, it may help to improve our laws and save lives.
