Friendly seatbelt reminder - one person in car had seatbelt on; other 3 are dead.

[garybeck]

Accident kills three people in St. Johnsbury
Free Press Staff Report • Sunday, June 20, 2010

ST. JOHNSBURY — Three people were killed when the 2003 Saab they were riding in missed a turn and struck a tree near 1482 Severance Hill Road in St. Johnsbury at about 12:47 a.m. Sunday, Vermont State Police said.

Adam Hovey, 21, of St. Johnsbury, William McQuade, 22, of Concord and Amber Riendeau, 19, of Concord were pronounced dead at the scene. None of them were wearing seat belts, Trooper Denis Girouard said.

A fourth man in the car, Matthew Desrochers, 24, of St. Johnsbury, was wearing a seat belt and was treated for cuts and bruises at and released from Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital in St. Johnsbury. The weather was clear and the road dry at the time of the crash, Girouard said. Police are investigating the crash and ask anyone with information to call Girouard at 748-3111.


Read more: http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20100620/NEWS02/100620020/Accident-kills-three-people-in-St.-Johnsbury#ixzz0rVrUwnPC

[LisaM]

1. That's what happened in Princess Diana's case

I'm always flabbergasted when people say that immediately after an accident isn't the time to discuss seatbelt use. It's the most obvious time of all.

[wtmusic]

2. Treated and released vs. dead.

Thanks for posting. :thumbsup:

[joeybee12]

3. Very true...and i can recall when seatbelts were optional in cars...

...now THAT was insane.

[hvn_nbr_2]

19. What was really insane was....

...the corpo talking point that requiring seat belts in cars would put them all out of business because of the intrusive regulation and how much it would add to the cost of a car and they wouldn't be able to compete with all the other companies that had to install the same devices but never mind that little fact that completely refutes their "bad for business" meme because if the big bad gummint makes them put seat belts in cars we're all gonna die from gummint-inflicted corpo death!!!!!!!!!!!! (Breathless hysterical run-on stream of incoherent talking point consciousness was intentional.)

[LiberalFighter]

4. Doesn't say which one was the driver. Stupid ass reporter.

[TheCowsCameHome]

13. Maybe they don't know yet.

What does it matter at this point - three are dead for no good reason.

[TexasObserver]

5. I've been a seatbelt devotee for 41 years.

It's the single most important safety step for driving or riding in a vehicle. If you don't stay in the car, you'll probably be seriously injured. If you don't stay in your seat, you'll fly around the car and your body is not as hard as the car. One quick blow to the head, and it's all over.

I haven't let anyone ride with me without a seatbelt in four decades, and I never drive or ride in vehicle without one. I won't ride in a vehicle that doesn't have a seatbelt for me.

[malaise]

14. Same here

I thank Ralph Nader quietly several times a year.

[Zoeisright]

16. Exactly.

Not to mention that if you're flying around inside the car, you can hurt or kill other passengers because you become a weapon.

[Contrary1]

17. That's how my brother's in-laws were killed...

Lost control on a patch of black ice, and hit a tree. The husband died from massive head trauma, after his wife flew across the seat and hit him with her head. She died from a broken neck.

Their son, who was strapped in, survived with a broken leg.

[TexasObserver]

18. That accident is a classic example. No kids on laps ever!!

Every time I see someone "letting" their child drive a car (holding the baby in their lap), I cringe. Do they not know that air bags kill children upon exploding, and that a bump at a few miles per hour can do that?

I've read cases such as the one involving a child of 9 who had her neck broken in the front passenger seat by a 15 mph collision. Almost no damage to the car.

The neck on a child is extremely vulnerable to an air bag deployment. Children should never sit in the front seat of a car with air bags.

[Contrary1]

24. I should have been a bit more clear with my comment...

Their son in the back seat was a college student, not a younger child. This was so sad, as both his mother and father usually buckled up.

They hit the tree with the driver's side. There was no trauma to the left of his head, so his (and her) death were caused by the impact of her head.

[pinboy3niner]

25. +1! In a 15-mph crash, a loose baby's velocity is 22 ft.-per-second

The same calculation applies to adults, but the thought of a baby becoming an "unguided missile" gives us more pause.

[LibDemAlways]

6. Too many young people think they are invincible. Horrible story,

but a good reminder. Always buckle up and make sure all passengers are belted in.

Hard to believe that when I was a kid cars didn't even have seat belts. Shudder to think about it.

[femmedem]

7. And people were more casual about driving drunk, too. n/t

[tilsammans]

8. VERY important message there.

K&R. :kick:

[SidDithers]

9. Thanks for posting this somber reminder...

K&R.

Sid

[AsahinaKimi]

10. When in a Taxi

I always wear a seatbelt. I don't own are car. I never understood why they don't have seat belts on buses, or even on light rail vehicles. I suppose it its too expensive for the city to install them. Yet, I have seen too many scenes where the Muni Metro Bus had an accident and riders were thrown all over the place. The crash of the Light rail here in SF a few months ago, was a great example.

Buckle up for safety!!

[seabeyond]

11. that is so sad for the loss of these three young people. nt

[jp11]

12. My car doesn't move unless my passengers are all belted in.

[Rebubula]

15. Derrick Thomas

That is the story that I use anytime the use of seatbelts come up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derrick_Thomas

And Followup:

http://www.kmbc.com/news/3660399/detail.html

[gratuitous]

20. First guy I think about every time

World class athlete, survived the initial crash, but complications finally took him weeks later.

Please, please, please, assembled masses at DU and, yes, even you freakazoid lurkers from That Other Place, buckle up when you get in the car.

[Liberal_in_LA]

21. yeah, wear your seatbelts everyone

[damntexdem]

22. And if that's not enough reason, in many states:

click it or ticket.

[bullwinkle428]

23. K&R, and I'm surprised we have yet to see a post from a

"Johnny Contrarian" type, insisting that "I'd rather be thrown clear of the vehicle in a crash!"

Seat belts have certainly saved my ass on more than one occasion...

[blondeatlast]

26. Sad that we STILL have to convince some people. k/r

[mikeytherat]

27. I was one of the last people to see my friend alive, 20 minutes before he was partially ejected

from a car. Partially ejected and had the car roll on him. Two other guys in the car, belted in, walked with scratches and bruises. This was high school, over 25 years ago, and I remember it like it was yesterday.

mikey_the_rat

[tjwash]

28. You'll have to put a seatbelt on my cold, dead--oh...wait...

[proteus_lives]

29. Someone needs to link this to the DU anti-seat belt loon.

[tjwash]

31. Hee...there is a DU anti-(insert whateverdafudge_here) loon for anything.

It's the internet dude...nothing is above being shit on.

"What...you only volunteered 6 hours on Friday in a homeless shelter? You heartless bastard...anyone with a real sense of decency would have given them 10000 dollars each as well."

Welp...off to Olive Garden!

Ciao :hi:

[Codeine]

33. "I wanna be thrown clear!" My stepdad's philosophy.

Unfortunately the one time he WAS in a bad accident the loony fucker WAS thrown clear, landed with a few scrapes, and walked away from his totaled truck and the extremely dead elk he hit. There was no convincing him after that. :crazy:

[Arugula Latte]

30. I just don't understand people who don't buckle up every time.

To me it's an automatic action when I get in a car...What is the big deal?

[kurtzapril4]

32. I understand.

A friend of mine, and his wife and teen-aged daughter were killed when a car crossed the median on an Interstate and hit them. They couldn't get out of their seat belts in time. They all burned alive. They had to be ID'd by dental records. On autopsy, it was found that the insides of their lungs were cooked, which means they were alive, and suffered breathing in the fire that killed them.

In another case, a drunk guy ran his Mercedes off the Damen bridge over the Chicago river. He wasn't wearing a seat belt. He lived, but his passenger drowned. In his seat belt. The dead guy's fingernails and tips of his fingers were shredded from his efforts to release his seat belt as he drowned.


Seat belts save lives...under certain conditions. I buckle up every time I drive, but not because I want to. We have the "Click it or Ticket" BS going on.

If I have to die in a car crash, I want it to be instantly....not after a period of time breathing fire or water.

P.S. How do they know these dead people weren't buckled in? Seat belts fail. A lot. Look it up.

[Nikia]

34. Almost every seat belt I've worn released fairly easily

If I were too injured to release it within seconds, I'd probably be too injured to get out of the car.
I've known a number of accidents in which the presence or absence of a seat belt made a difference. In general, you will die or get seriously injured if you fly from the car.

[kurtzapril4]

35. Very true

If you fly from a car you are probably going to be killed or seriously injured. However, if you are trapped by the seat belt in a burning car, you for sure are going to burn to death, or be seriously injured.

I didn't feel this way about seat belts at all until my friend and his family were killed by them. Sure, if they had been ejected, they would have died or been seriously injured. BUT, they wouldn't have burned to death.

Doesn't sound like a pleasant way to die, does it?

[Berry Cool]

36. What you describe is horrible, but it is an anomaly.

Statistically, the chances of dying (even a slow, painful death) as a result of being thrown from a car are still higher than those of being trapped inside a car and dying a long, painful, drawn-out death from burning or drowning because you were unable to escape your belt.

The sad thing is that people usually make decisions about the most important things in their lives based not on statistical fact, but on personal anecdote. "My grandfather smoked three packs a day and he lived to be 105." "People I knew were burned alive in a car because they wore seat belts." So the person chooses to keep smoking, or not wear a seat belt, despite any statistics indicating that the odds are against such behavior turning out well.