The Manitoba Driver, from Manitoba Public Insurance
October 2011
About 517 words
Seatbelts are life savers
The lives of one Manitoba family were changed forever on a beautiful summer day last year.
The family of four were returning home from a visit with family in Regina. Two children were in the back of the Grand Caravan; the four-year-old was in a five-point harness and the seven-year-old was sitting in a booster seat.
"Our youngest was trying to convince my wife and I to move him into a booster seat but he's only 35 pounds," said the father. "We explained that it wouldn't be safe for him to change seats yet.
"We were heading east on the double-lane highway at Whitewood, Saskatchewan, when I saw a car travelling south across the other west-bound lanes of the highway," explains the father of two. "I said to my wife 'you're kidding me!' and the next thing I knew we were spinning in circles."
The Manitoba driver hit the car on the passenger side, spun two-and-a-half times and ended up facing the wrong way in the middle of the highway .
The airbags went off and the loud bang of the crash woke up the sleeping four-year-old. "My wife and I looked at each other, our youngest was crying but we were terrified because there was no sound from our seven-year-old."
Fearing the worst, the driver and his wife found their way around the airbags and were elated when they saw their older son was okay.
The family were all fortunate to leave the accident with only some bruising and a broken thumb. "If we weren't all wearing seatbelts the outcome would have been much different—the seatbelts saved our lives," admits the father.
The family was taken to the hospital in Moosomin, Saskatchewan, about 25 minutes away from where the accident happened. The family was released that same night and driven back to Winnipeg.
"I didn't sleep at all that night and my wife maybe slept for 45 minutes," said the father.
And that wasn't the last sleepless night for the family. As a result of the collision there were lasting emotional effects on the children.
"Our youngest was traumatized," said the father. "One minute he's sleeping, the next he sees his parents smothered by airbags. And our older son just would not talk about the incident."
One of the benefits of Manitoba Public Insurance's Personal Injury Protection Plan was counselling for the children, who were dealing with emotional trauma.
The Manitoba driver says that it wasn't until seatbelts became mandatory that he started to regularly use a seatbelt. "I didn't know anyone who had been in a serious car accident and thought only bad drivers get into accidents."
His experience has changed his perspective.
"I'm a cautious driver with full merits and there is nothing I could have done differently that day," he explained. "I now realize you can't control how others drive but the way others drive can change your life in the blink of an eye. My advice to anyone who gets behind the wheel of a car is to wear their seatbelt. It saved me and my family."
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© 2011 Manitoba Public Insurance