Survivors' Harrowing Tale Underscores the Importance of Buckling Up

(L-R) Lt. Scott Rathburn of Lebanon Police; Jim Esdon, Program Manager of the Injury Prevention Center at CHaD; Fred von Recklinghausen, DHMC Trauma Program Manager; Sue Prentiss and Phoebe Low.

"Buckle up" is far more than a public safety slogan for Sue Prentiss and her daughter Phoebe Low of Lebanon. For them, wearing safety belts may well have meant the difference between life and death.

While traveling north on I-91 in bad weather in December 2007, their Volvo station wagon slid off the road, rolled end-to-end and then over its side at least three times before coming to rest. Aside from some badly rattled nerves, the only injury was a broken arm for Phoebe. Both Sue and Phoebe attribute their survival to "doing what we do every day―we buckle our seatbelts." (See their interview)

Sue and Phoebe were on hand recently at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) to help kick off a seat belt awareness campaign aimed at getting more people to buckle up, especially in New Hampshire which remains the only state in the country without a mandatory seatbelt law. The event was held to coincide with Memorial Day holiday weekend, typically one of the heaviest travel periods of the year in America. The American Automobile Association (AAA) estimates that about 32.4 million people will venture at least 50 miles from home this weekend, with 83 percent traveling by automobile.

"I absolutely want to see a seatbelt law in New Hampshire," Prentiss said. "I don't think there's any reason for us to be last in the nation on this, since we're first in so many other things." Prentiss recalled her childhood as a time when seatbelt use was never required, and credited her time on the Rescue Squad at St. Michael's College for changing her attitude about their use after seeing firsthand the results of not wearing them. Prentiss is now Chief of Emergency Medical Services for New Hampshire, and has been a paramedic since 1994.

"If you are thrown out of a car during a crash, your chance of dying doubles, and your risk of having a severe head, chest or abdominal injury goes way up," says Paul Kispert, M.D., a trauma surgeon at DHMC. Kispert cited a 2007 study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) that projected that 17 lives could be saved annually in New Hampshire if seat belt use rose to 90 percent. That same study, released on May 14 and based on 2007 data, estimates that 1,652 lives could be saved and 22,372 serious injuries avoided each year on America's roadways if seat belt use rates rose to 90 percent in every state.

The seat belt usage rate in New Hampshire was 69.2 percent in 2008, behind only Massachusetts and Wyoming. Seat belt use in Vermont was 87.3 percent in 2008, above the national average of 83 percent.

Links:
DHMC Trauma Program
National Highway Safety Traffic Administration