A Matter Of Survival Car Safety Seats Credited For Saving Lives In Terrible Crashes

Micaela Hovater, 2, misses her mommy.

She cries for her, wakes up wanting to be held, and when a car goes around a curve, she snaps alert: “I’m falling, don’t let me fall.”

The emotional scars of seeing her mother die in a roll-over near Airway Heights last summer are still obvious for Micaela. The physical scars are not.

There were none.

The Nissan that Micaela was riding in rolled seven times and was so crushed that her mother died of head injuries even though she was wearing a seat belt. The toddler’s car seat had to be pulled out through the rear window. But Micaela was barely bruised. Seated in the middle of the rear seat, tightly belted in, she escaped even minor injuries.

At an appearance Monday, Micaela’s grandmother, Dee-Dee Updike, said without that car seat she’d have lost her granddaughter as well as her 21-year-old daughter, Michelle Hovater.

“I would have had a double funeral,” Updike said.

Updike spoke at the Washington State Patrol offices where safety officials retired the car seats of Micaela and Logan Burke, 2, and gave them new ones donated by safety organizations and manufacturers.

“If a seat has been in a serious crash, it’s done its job, it should be replaced,” said Mary Hiss, health educator for the Spokane Regional Health District.

Logan also survived a crash because of his car seat. On Jan. 15 Logan’s mother, Christina Hutton was driving the toddler to a doctor’s appointment when their Subaru flipped over a guardrail on I-90 and slid 30 to 40 feet toward Latah Creek.

“Logan didn’t have a mark on him and we were upside down,” Hutton said.

Currently, parents who fail to place children under 3 in a restraint seat can be fined $66 - about the cost of a new car seat.

Micaela’s mother died July 23, 1996, after she lost control of her car on U.S. Highway 2 just east of Airway Heights.

Since then, Updike has enrolled her granddaughter in day care at Fairchild Air Force Base, where she works as secretary to the commander of the 92nd Civil Engineer Squadron. She started a memory book for Micaela and arranged for play therapy. Monday, as she does every day, she installed the new car seat pulling the belt tight before buckling Micaela in.

“I miss my daughter tremendously, but I’m thankful to have my granddaughter. At 5:30 in the morning, I’m thankful to get out of bed and take care of her.”

Spokane County Health District recommends that:

All children under age 13 and shorter than 5 feet ride in the rear, especially in vehicles with passenger side air bags.

Children fit their car seat. Most children outgrow infant seats at 20 pounds, convertible seats at 40 pounds and booster seats at 60 pounds.

A locking clip be used if the lap part of the lap/shoulder belt does not stay tight around the car seat.

Any car seats involved in a crash should be replaced, because hidden damage can severely weaken them.

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