Simply Safety Many Teens Have Survived Terrible Car Wrecks Because They Were Wearing Their Seat Belts

Krista Beardslee can remember everything. Every tiny detail stands out in her mind.

“I can still see the dust on the windshield… I can hear the breaking glass,” she said. “I can hear the screaming.”

Beardslee, a Deer Park junior, was driving down Highway 395 between Spokane and Deer Park last July with her younger sister Lacy, cousin Maria and friend Amanda, when she hit a patch of gravel and lost control of her car she got only four days earlier.

The car rolled three or four times, but all four were able to walk away and go home after close examination at the hospital for minor cuts and bruises.

Chuck Freeland had a similar experience. He was driving his friend Courtney Moranto home in July 1995. He decided to take a side road and ignored the loose gravel signs. He, too, rolled his car. Moranto’s injuries were a bit more severe - she suffered a broken neck and had to wear a “halo” for three months - but they, too, were able to walk way.

Why? Why did these students escape the statistics? How did they keep from becoming one of more than 40,000 deaths that occur each year from auto accidents? How did they keep from becoming subject to the leading cause of death among those under 35?

Two words - seat belts. All those involved in both cars were wearing their seat belts at the time of the accidents.

Beardslee has always worn her seat belt. It was a habit instilled in her from childhood. If her parents didn’t hear the click of the belt, the car did not move.

Freeland, a Deer Park senior, has always worn his seat belt, too.

“I wore it because I was supposed to,” he said. “I didn’t realize the full effect of (wearing one) until after the wreck.”

And who would not realize the effectiveness of something that has literally saved your life?

Beardslee’s mother returned to the scene of the accident and found her daughter’s sunglasses flung into a nearby field. Beardslee had been wearing them at the time of the wreck.

Officials at the scene of Freeland’s accident told them that, without their seat belts, they would have been laying with the windshield - 20 feet away.

“We would have been really messed up,” Freeland said. It is amazing that, even after hearing stories like these, many students still do not buckle up. Only about 50 percent of all Americans wear their seat belts. Last year, 71 percent of teens who died in car crashes were not wearing seat belts, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

“Anyone who doesn’t have a seat belt on has a total death wish,” said Beardslee. “(I wear one) even if I’m going to the neighbor’s.”

And Freeland agrees.

“I wear one even if I’m just backing out of the driveway,” he said. “My friends have to wear one, too, or we don’t leave. Now I know what it means.”

Freeland added that, when driving someone else, “you have to take into consideration that you are in control of someone’s life.”

He claims that since his accident, his driving has become 100 percent better.

“Although I’m not perfect yet,” he added with a smile. “But I’m way more aware of what’s going on. And if I’m late … I take my time.”

And though Beardslee - as much as she would like to - cannot wish away her accident, she has learned from it as well. She learned just how important seat belts are.

Her doctor’s advice to her was, “Tell everybody you are only alive today because you had your seat belt on.”

And she has.