Saved by Seatbelts

Brianna White hasn't even reached bicycle-riding age, but she already knows to wear her seatbelt. Each time the 5-year-old gets into the car, she not only puts on her own seatbelt, she makes certain her mother Jenny is also safely buckled.
Mrs. White, a friend of base family advocacy outreach coordinator Karen GreyEyes, inadvertently taught her daughter the importance of seatbelts. A July 31 automobile accident  near Larimore left White a quadriplegic. She said a seatbelt would have probably saved her from serious injury.
White was on the way back from Devil's Lake early that morning with a friend, who fell asleep while driving. When the 1997 Grand Am began veering off the road, White grabbed the steering wheel, but the car rolled over into the ditch, and she found herself trapped.
"I know I wasn't wearing a seatbelt and I was the one who got hurt - my friend didn't even have to be admitted to the hospital," White said.
More Air Force people were killed in the first six months of 2001 - 53 - than in either of the previous two years, according to Air Force safety statistics. The majority of fatalities were caused by off-duty automobile accidents, with not wearing seatbelts one of the most common causes.
Lt. Col. Glenn Rousseau's wife discovered a unique method of teaching their children to always wear seatbelts. She once traveled with Rousseau on a military airplane and was amused to hear her husband and his co-pilot repeat the word "check" as they did their pre-flight checklists. So she taught their four children to go through their own checklist whenever the family piles into their van.
"One of those things that they respond to is when the 'pilot' of the family van challenges everyone with a 'seatbelt check,'" Rousseau said. "The rapid, disciplined succession of 'check' responses from all our little 'crewmembers' is not only cute, but very reassuring. Our family has fun with this, but more importantly, we know we are all strapped in and ready for the unexpected, which is serious business."
Seatbelts are a problem on base. During a recent seatbelt inspection, more than 15 percent of passengers in 500 base automobiles were not buckled in, said Rousseau, 319th Air Refueling Wiing chief of safety.
"For my entire military career, I've heard about the benefits of wearing seatbelts and how they save lives," Rousseau said. "How anyone in this day and age can read the reports, see the statistics and hear the personal testimonies that say wearing seatbelts is the right thing to do, then choose not to wear them is beyond my comprehension.
"Seatbelts help to prevent accidents and greatly increase your chances of surviving. Since you can't predict when you will have an accident, make seatbelts a habit and live."
White has adjusted to life as a quadriplegic, with the assistance of her "little helper." But Brianna isn't the only one who learned a valuable lesson through her mother's paralysis.
"A lot of us didn't wear them, but my family has adjusted to wearing seatbelts since then," she said. "My life could have been taken away. I want everyone to know its very important to wear their seatbelts."