Mum Warns of Forward-Facing Carseats After Her Daughter Was Left With Life-Threatening Injuries in Car Crash

A mother has shared her heartbreak after her daughter in a forward-facing car seat was left with life-threatening injuries in car crash while her other daughter in a rearward-facing carseat was left unscathed.

Mum Angela Brown, from rural New South Wales, has now made a heartbreaking Facebook post to urge other parents to use rearward-facing seats, three months after the crash.

Mrs Brown and her husband were travelling home from the dentist along with their two young daughters, a two-year-old and a one-year-old, when the car they are in slammed in to a tree at 100km/h on February 26. The impact caused the car to flip and the tree they crashed into, snapped in two and landed on the roof of the car, trapping the family inside.

Mrs Brown said that she then heard her two daughters screaming and they were upside down in the car. To her horror, she saw her two-year-old daughter, who was seated in a forward-facing carseat, had a large laceration on her forehead after the aircon control vent had flown off and hit the girl’s head, while her one-year-old daughter, who was facing rearward, had only a small bruise on her shoulder.

The two girls were then taken to Westmead Hospital.

Mrs Brown said that her toddler was one of the youngest to be fitted with a Halo Brace and that the doctor told her that most children with the same kind of injury don’t normally make it.

After the accident, Mrs Brown said she said she would use rearward facing seats for her babies from then on as long as she possibly could. She wrote:

“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.”

Kid Safe recommended that children are restrained in rearward facing seats until they are about six to nine months old, are 70cm tall or outgrow the seat, while children aged between six months and four years old can be secured in either a rear or forward facing child restraint with a built in five or six point harness.

Source: Dailymail.co.uk