We’re all fine. Have to start with that.<\/p>\n
My neighbor\/friend Carolyn and I and our two boys were going to go skiing
\ntoday. Two miles before we got there, we skidded, swerved, skidded, and
\nended up sliding off the road and 137 feet down the side of a mountain
\n(very close to vertical, no exaggeration), rolling once or twice and
\nlanding upside down hanging by our seatbelts. Luckily there was a ton of
\nsnow so it slowed us down a bit and the slide was very soft for going over
\na cliff.<\/p>\n
We were going slow (less than 30) uphill; the road seemed fine (wet and
\nslushy) and there must have been ice but the people behind us,who stopped
\nabruptly when they saw us go over, didn’t notice any loss of traction. We
\nthink the tires were bad or something went wrong with the 4 wheel drive.<\/p>\n
No-one was even hurt which was pretty miraculous. The children both had
\nbooster seats (despite being way over the age requirements for
\nColorado). Somehow the ski boots which ended up in the front on the
\nwindshield didn’t whack anyone. We were able to unbuckle everyone from the
\n“ceiling” and the power windows still worked and one door opened. The many
\npeople who stopped were incredible and formed a chain up the steep side of
\nthe hill and got us up and into a warm car. Sorting it out took most
\nthe rest of the day but we are all safe and sound at home.<\/p>\n
I’m so thankful that I chose to put in the booster seat even though Alex is
\nalmost at its weight limit (otherwise he likely would have slipped down
\nunder until the seatbelt was on his belly, since his legs aren’t long
\nenough for SUV seats), that I anchored the booster in, that we stopped to
\nput up Ben’s headrest to the right height, that we made Ben sit up straight
\ninstead of laying down for a nap. I’m thankful that someone saw it (and
\nthat the first thing the witness told us after finding out we were OK was
\nthat the car was stable and wouldn’t go anywhere). I guess I have
\nsomething to put in our holiday letters now….<\/p>\n
Please, everyone, don’t get lazy with safety. Over 80% of carseats are
\ninstalled incorrectly (usually not tight enough – if you can wiggle it more
\nthan an inch or two side to side, you may need to put your whole weight in
\nit and tighten it). IIRC, children should be in boosters until their legs
\nfold at the seat edge without pulling them forward and until the seatbelt
\nrests across their shoulder. Anchor seats and boosters if you can (the one
\nthat wasn’t anchored slipped out from under the child when we rolled, but
\nhe was OK).\u00a0 Drive safe this season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We’re all fine. Have to start with that. My neighbor\/friend Carolyn and I and our two boys were going to go skiing today. Two miles before we got there, we skidded, swerved, skidded, and ended up sliding off the road and 137 feet down the side of a mountain (very close to vertical, no exaggeration), […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stroyan.net\/lisasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stroyan.net\/lisasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stroyan.net\/lisasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stroyan.net\/lisasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stroyan.net\/lisasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stroyan.net\/lisasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stroyan.net\/lisasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stroyan.net\/lisasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stroyan.net\/lisasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}