Somehow, some way, Mikayla got the shoulder strap of her seatbelt wrapped around her torso in a knot. As we're driving on Hwy 99 she says, "my seatbelt's too tight." "You have permission to take it off and redo it," I said. Seconds later we hear whining and complaining and I sigh and decide to risk my life by climbing over the seat, across the fruit loop-ridden floor, dodging books and socks strewn about to get to her. After a minute of fidgeting, I tell Trent to stop the van because I can not undo her belt and it's only getting worse.
He pulls over and we survey what she's done and think if only we can lift her body higher, the seatbelt will reach the magical clicking point where it will let loose and give us the slack we need. 'Tis not so. Every time we moved her it racheted tighter and tighter on her torso closing in on her ribs. She was screaming and crying in between struggling to breathe. I propped her up on my legs to relieve a little pressure and we frantically tried to figure out how to undo the strangling, malfunctioning belt.
Fortunately, a car was pulled over just ahead of us and on a whim I asked Trent to see if the driver might by chance be carrying around some tools in his SUV. Hallelujah, the man had a wrench and a screwdriver! He and Trent ripped off the rubber insulation, pried off the panel surrounding the seatbelt, unscrewed the hardware holding the seatbelt up, and of course, all this movement caused it to rachet a few notches tighter causing more screams of pain from the poor 7 yr old. Finally, they got the belt out of the vehicle panel and we loosened the knot til she could wriggle free.
The aftermath. The seatbelt STILL won't loosen up. It is racheted tight and for some reason locked internally. We took the vehicle into Kia to be looked at and they said they need to order a new seatbelt since it malfunctioned so badly.
The next day her abdomen still looked awful.
Poor child will definitely be sitting upright and not moving while in the car from now on!
4 comments:
Reading that story just made me cry, poor girl. Give her extra kisses from Auntie Keltie, and tell her we all love her. Kia is lucky it wasn't more serious or they could have a law suit on their hands. The pictures just made me sick to my stomach.
oh my goodness that is terrible. poor girl :(
Poor girl! that looks terrible!
Oh my gosh! That's awful! Poor girl!
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