Burns1

William Burns

Date:11-9-17

English 1 CRN#13194

Instructor: Gregory Turner

Children's Hospital, “Where a person is a person no matter how big or small”.

On a warm summer evening I was driving to Central Valley Children’s hospital to go and visit my twins boys who happened to be at the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) at Central Valley Children’s Hospital because they were born over five months early and they could not come home yet. Now this is a world that I never knew existed a crazy world of tiny little people, beeping, alarms, and other scary noises. My wife and I had twins but they were born so early in fact that only certain places can actually care for them and give them a chance to survive. A few weeks earlier we were told by some Doctors from the hospital I work “ If your kids are come early, they do they will die” not they may, they will. They said that there was nothing that they could do for them, they had to wait and see what happens, they were just not capable of handling such small children. Flash forward after the scare of eminent death my kids were born weighing just over a pound each and both so small they can fit inside my hand. They were transferred from St. Agnes Hospital to Central Valley Children's Hospital only a few miles away from each other. During our stay we learned a lot of valuable information and the one part that has stuck with me the most even today is about car seat safety and how important it is. The nursing staff at Children’s hospital where really excellent at their jobs, they taught us everything and we had our moments of ups and downs, crying and happy moments. But there was also a nurse named Virginia (I don’t remember her last name), but she is the one nurse that got me really into car seat safety. She taught me a few things and gave me information that frankly scared me more than actually having to care for my kids. I’m going to go over a few things now from a friend of mine in the Trauma Department at Children's hospital now and talk about what they are trying to do to help combat this epidemic.

This first thing that I learned about car seats if that they have an expiration date, I had never even thought about that but the average date is about 5 years but there are some that are good for 8 years. You can figure out how old your car seat is or see what expiration is at home. All you have to do it to take it out of your car then look at the bottom of the seat, there is a label that has the manufacture date, and expiration date on it. If there is no expiration date then the “universal” date is 5 years from the date of manufacture. Another thing is that if it has been involved in a car accident or you received it from buying at a yard sale or some other place than new it could be seriously damaged and not be safe. If you get a seat from a thrift store and do not check it may be dangerous to use because it could have cracks, and bends in the plastic. I would never recommend using a car seat that was not bought new from a store or given to you by someone that used it and knows the history of the seat. Facts from the Safe Kids worldwide,”Road injuries are the leading cause of preventable deaths and injuries to children in the United States, Correctly used safety seats can reduce the risk of death by as much as 71 percent, and 3 out of 4 car seats are not used correctly”. Going over these points a lot of people spend a lot of time in a vehicle growing up, not everyone but a lot. When you use a car seat correctly it can help increase the chance of lesser injury or even death by almost 71 percent, now that is a huge number. Personally anything better than no chance at all is always better than none. Bringing up the last point 3 out of 4 are not being used properly, and that is true. The numbers could actually be higher than that and a lot of times it is really something simple that is not being done correctly. Out of all of the car seats I have personally checked only 1 out of over 30 have been correct. The one that was correct was just a child in a booster seat with the seat belt. Car Seats are confusing, they come with a huge set of instructions and no one ever wants to sit and read it all.

Some shocking numbers from(IIHS) in the year of 2014 there were 602 children under the age of 13 killed in car crashes. Of the 603 killed 207 were completely unrestrained. Then in 2015 there was 663 children killed in car crashes under the age of 13. Of the 663 in 2015 there was 2015 children completely unrestrained. These numbers are a lot, but it is not as much as it was 20 years ago there was over 1,000 kids in same age rage killed in car accidents. With the highest year that I could find stats on was 1989 when 1,469 children under the age of 13 were killed in car accidents. No these numbers are really alarming, but looking back you can see a trend where people are starting to learn about these things and try to better protect their kids. The best thing you can do is to provide a proper seat for you child. While I can not tell you which brand is better than the other, but I can give you an idea of what is the safest. The safest spot for a child in is always going to be in the backseat of a vehicle in a seat that is correct for their height and weight. Not all car seats have different height and weight details so you have to look at the seats to see. A infant should be rear facing until they are two years old now (New California law took effect this past January 1,2017), or 40 pounds, or 40 inches tall But the reality of it is that a child should remain in a rear facing seat or convertible seat rear facing for as long as possible. Rear facing is safer for a child because in the event of a car crash their seat will move with the crash and reduce the impact on the child. When kids are forward facing they can be in a forward facing seat with a 5 point harness probably at least until they are 5 to 6 years old or out grow the seats measurements. Then after that you have to see how your child is sitting in seat and the biggest things to check is to make sure that when sitting the seat belt goes over their shoulder without touching the neck at all. Then they also have to sit all the way back against the seat and if their legs do not bend over the seat and touch the ground they must be in a booster seat.

Now all of this has come to my friend Kristina Pasma, who is currently a Trauma Nurse with Central Valley Children’s hospital. I spoke with Kristina about this and asked her some questions and I’m going to go over some of these now following this. Kristina has been at Children’s hospital since the year 2002 working as a Charge Nurse. Then in 2013 Kristina went from the Emergency Room Charge nurse to working in their newly developed Trauma Department. So she went from working with over hundreds of other nurse’s to working with just one and helping to develop their Trauma department. In her time working in the Trauma department aspect of her job she has started working on a lot of prevention goals to help prevent injuries from children coming into the hospital. One of the ways that she does this is she is now an Car Seat Safety Technician Instructor, and has started to teach a lot of staff at the hospital in this. In doing this she is able to help more staff better educate the public and patients when they are leaving. Helping to ensure that the family knows how to use a car seat properly will help to reduce the risk of that child having a serious or fatal accident.

At Children’s hospital Kristina has held or helped to co-sponsor a car seat checkup event every month over the last 12-18 months now since she has been an instructor and her facility has helped fund the program. A car seat checkup event is basically where parents or care providers can come in and get education on how to properly install and use a car seat. I have attended three events so far in Fresno, Tulare, and Visalia and it is really amazing what we have come across. Sometimes when people come in with their seats they have it completely backwards, or they really tried to install it but it just wasn't right. This really happens a lot where the parents or care takers have the seats installed but there is a few things wrong, like maybe the seat belt is not threading correctly or the seat belt is not locked. At these events as well there may be people that have damaged or expired seats, have no seats at all, or have a seat that is not correct for that child. At the events there is always seats to give out to families, and the only question asked to the family is “Can they afford to replace it”, if they are not able to Children’s hospital does not question that answer and they give them a brand new seat and someone helps them install it. Then the old seat is taken away to be used as teaching material or it is cut up and destroyed so that it can’t be used.

One of the things that Kristina wishes to change is the amount of staffing that she has in the Trauma department and the amount of time that she does get to allocate to prevention efforts like the car seat safety. Right now she has 5 other employees that work in her department with her, but she is the main person that focuses on Car Seat Safety. In doing her job as a registered nurse she has seen a lot of things that has really made her passionate about being able to help the community and being able to provide the safe new car seat and education to parents and children as well. I would have to say that even though I’m not a nurse myself, I'm going back to school to become a nurse and want to work in the NICU at one point. Currently right now I’m working as a Security Lead Officer, but I’m also certified to help people with car seats as well. I became a car seat technician after finally finding the time in my busy schedule to attend the 40 hour class and become a tech. Now after being a tech for a few years myself I want to go to the next level and become instructor like Kristina is so that I’m able to help out my community better. My wish is to one day help my hospital create more prevention programs in the Trauma department like Children’s and trying to support a community effort to educate the public about this issue.

Coming to my conclusion on this topic Kristina Is helping Central Valley Children’s hospital expand and help to prevent injuries before they occur. She also helps to ensure that more staff are trained in this area and are better able to help parents and care takers with installing and showing how to use their car seats. Another way that this is important to their community is in their saying (but is also from Dr. Seuss) “A person's a person no matter how big or small”. This is true in fact because they're at their hospital they care for the tiniest of patients that could fit in the palm of your hand to adults. Now that more staff are trained in car seat installation they are able to better help parents and care takers leave the hospital with their new born kids that have may have had to say at the hospital for months. This is true because I was once one of those parents that received the education of how to put my kids in the car seat and how to put the car seat into the car. Also bringing up another fact, my kids are now grown and are about 4 and ½ years old now, and are doing great.

Works Cited

“Car Seat Safety Tips.” Safe Kids Worldwide,

“Child Safety.” IIHS, International Institute Highway Safety,

Pasma, Kristina. Personal Interview on 10-19-17.