By Mitchell Clarke
A Pakenham mother has issued a warning about the importance of rear-facing restraints, after her one-year-old son survived a horror high speed smash.
Hayley, surname withheld, was travelling on the Princes Freeway on 1 August, when an allegedly stolen car collided with her Mazda SUV at high speed.
The young mother was travelling in the left lane at 80 kilometres when a smaller Mazda SUV, which was seen allegedly travelling over 150 kilometres, hit Hayley’s car and pushed her off the road.
“It was very out of the blue. I didn’t see him coming, I just looked in the rear mirror and all of a sudden he hit me and with that my car just catapulted,” she recalled.
“I couldn’t process what was going on. I didn’t have time to steer or break. One second I was in the air and the next I was in a drain.
“I was just screaming for help for my son. I was stuck and I couldn’t get the doors open, so I jumped in the back of the car to be with him. He was screaming and terrified.”
Within minutes, people had come from all directions to help the young mother and her son, who were both extremely lucky to walk from the collision relatively unscathed.
Hayley received whip lash and sustained bruising and black eyes while her son had two small bruises from the harness.
A police officer later called Hayley to commend her for keeping her son in the rear-facing position, which has been credited to his survival.
“If he was facing forwards, the police officer said this would have been a whole different conversation and his injuries would have been horrendous instead of minor,” she said.
Hayley hopes her tale of survival will inspire other young parents to keep their children in a rear-facing position for as long as possible.
RACV senior policy advisor Elvira Lazar said parents should only move their child to a forward-facing restraint once their baby’s shoulders are above the top shoulder height marker.
“RACV has long promoted the importance of height, not age, when it comes to transitioning children from rear-facing to forward-facing child restraints,” Ms Lazar said.
“This incident proves that the right child restraint installed correctly can make a big difference and save lives. It serves a timely reminder for parents to check that their children are buckled in correctly before every trip.”
With RACV research finding that 70 percent of child restraints not being installed correctly, it’s hoped some positive awareness will come from the crash and save another young family from a potential tragedy.
“When I went to pick all my belongings out of the car, I looked at the car and I just cried. I couldn’t believe we survived that, we were just so lucky that we landed the way we did,” Hayley recalled.
“It’s unlucky what happened, but we’re lucky to survive.
“I consider myself a good driver, but this really makes you aware that you can’t prepare for other people’s actions. Prepare for the unexpected and give yourself every option to be safe.”
