Child safety seat check a success

Sept. 17 – The Kailee Elizabeth Taylor Child Seat Check was held this past Saturday from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the Seymour Business Park on Hwy. 411. “This is one of the best turnouts I’ve seen,” stated Lt. Jessie Brooks from the Tennessee Highway Patrol.
The event was held in honor of Kailee Elizabeth Taylor, a Seymour resident who was eight-months old when she was killed along with her mother, Kristin Elizabeth Gibson, 20, in a traffic accident in July. Kailee was restrained in an infant seat at the time of the accident.
Lt. Jimmy Neal and Lt. Jessie Brooks of the Tennessee Highway Patrol checked every car seat that came in. “Only one seat was installed correctly, and it was a booster seat,” stated Neal. “We are very pleased with the turnout and that we were able to help so many people. If we helped one person it would have been worth it.”
The event was free to the public. The Herald Newspapers will be having another Kailee Elizabeth Taylor Child Seat Check in the spring.
“The event was so successful, the officers asked if we would hold it again in the spring. They said they had a better turnout here than they have had Wal-Mart,” stated Publisher Joe Karl. “It was unbelievable the amount of information that I learned about child seats.”
There was a wealth of information shared by the officers. Some of the items that stood out included:
1) Put the child seat in the middle of the backseat. That way if there is a side impact, the baby is farther away from the impact.
2) Put a piece of rubberized shelf liner under the seat (especially on leather seats) to keep the child seat in place.
3) Children need to be facing the rear of the vehicle up to age one.
4) Take the child’s coat off before putting him/her in the car seat even in the winter. The coat can move and loosen the straps.
The coat can be placed over the baby once it is in the seat.
5) The life of a child seat is six years. After that, throw it away.
6) Never buy a used car seat. You don’t know its history and won’t know about recalls.
7) Always fill out the warranty cards and send them in. That way you will know if a seat is being recalled.
Tim Gibson, Kristin’s brother and Kailee’s uncle, was at the event finding out information on how to properly install car seats in the back of extended cab trucks. “I hope this event will help save the lives of other babies,” stated Gibson. “I don’t want the death of my niece to be in vain.”
Of the seats checked at the event, one had been recalled. The officers not only helped to properly install the seats but also shared information on recalled seats, and talked about basic things that most people don’t think twice about.
“If you have a baby in a car seat and have a 100-pound dog in the back seat, if there is an accident the dog can kill or injure the child,” stated Neal. “Also the pull-down sun visors that some people use, and that area stores sell a large number of, have metal bars at the bottom that can be like a lightning rod in an accident. It’s much safer to use the static cling type of sunscreens in the automobile. Even things like cans of vegetables if you’re coming home from the grocery store can cause a great deal of damage. They need to be secured.”
Reflector mirrors that many people put on the back windows to see the baby are also dangerous. “You can get the kind that are thin pieces of plastic that do the job and won’t cause damage in an accident,” stated Brooks.