Child is ejected from car, suffering serious injuries
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By Dustin Lemmon | Friday, November 03, 2006 |
(Kevin E. Schmidt/Quad-City Times) A Scott County deputy stands near an accident scene in rural Scott County early Thursday morning after a two-car accident at an intersection. A baby was ejected from a car seat, and the occupants were taken to the hospital.
Scott County sheriff’s deputies weren’t certain Thursday, but it appears a 22-month-old was injured seriously in a two-car accident because a child safety seat was not used properly.
Anika Lang of rural Long Grove, Iowa, and her father, Michael D. Lang, 30, were transported to University Hospitals in Iowa City after a two-vehicle accident at 6:54 a.m. Thursday at the intersection of 290th Street, also known as St. Ann’s Road, and Veterans Highway, also known as Scott Park Road.
The sheriff’s department said Anika Lang was ejected through a window in the Hyundai sedan and suffered serious injuries. Hospital officials had no information on the condition of Anika Lang Thursday. Michael Lang was treated and released.
Lt. Dave Anderson said the child safety seat that Anika Lang was using was still inside the vehicle.
“The assumption is that it wasn’t correct,” he said of the seat’s installation. “Part of the investigation, of course, is talking to the dad, and we haven’t had a chance to do that yet.”
Deputies said the Langs were eastbound on 290th Street, and a Chrysler two-door driven by John Scott, 41, of Park View, Iowa, was northbound on Veterans Highway. They said east-west traffic is required to yield to north-south traffic at the intersection, and charges are pending. Scott did not seek treatment.
Keene Hart, a coordinator of the Quad-Cities Safe Kids Coalition, said 94 percent of child safety seats in the Quad-Cities are not being used properly. The coalition hosts an inspection site each weekend throughout the year at different locations in Iowa and Illinois.
Hart said if a seat can move side to side or forward and backward by more than an inch, it is not secure, and parents have to make sure the harness is snug.
“That’s the whole idea of a child safety seat, it is to keep you from being ejected,” Hart said.
Hart, who also works as a paramedic for Genesis Medical Center-Illini Campus, Silvis, was not at the scene of Thursday’s accident but said he has seen cases first-hand in which seats have worked and others in which they’ve been misused.
In an accident last summer, Hart saw both parents ejected from the vehicle because they weren’t wearing seat belts, but the child, who was in a safety seat, was uninjured and remained strapped in while the car rested on its roof. The parents were hospitalized but survived.
“The whole idea of seat belts and child safety seats is to keep you inside the safe zone,” he said.
Dustin Lemmon can be contacted at (563) 383-2493 or dlemmon@qctimes.com.
(RAW VIDEO: View the scene after the accident.)
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