Miracle Baby Smiles After Being Thrown 25 Feet in Car Crash

Seven-month-old Madison Goldsmith survived a serious car crash. The Car Seat Lady comments and shares her top car seat tips to help all kids stay safe. (Photo: Cox Media Group)

She was ejected from a minivan, launched 25 feet through the air in her car seat, and crash landed onto snowy ground. Yet the only injury 7-month-old Madison Goldsmith sustained was a bruise. “They said her eyes were closed, literally closed and she was face down in the car seat,” Alicia Lewis, aunt of Madison’s mom, Lashanda Goldsmith, tells WHIO about police officers’ account of the aftermath of the crash in Harrison Township Ohio on Monday morning. A car had reportedly ran a red light and smashed into Goldsmith’s vehicle.

“When they flipped [Madison] over they thought she was dead. Then they said her eyes opened and she started smiling.”

Five people in the pileup also involving a semi-truck, suffered injuries. Two of the injured were in serious condition at the hospital on Tuesday. So how Madison made it out safely is a mystery to her family. “Looking at [Madison] like, wow, she doesn’t even know what’s going on” Lewis said. “She was the one in the trauma and we’re traumatized but she’s not.” 

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Miracle is a better word, says certified child car safety expert and pediatrician Alisa Baer. “Statistically, once you’re ejected from a car, your chances of dying are four times greater,” Baer tells Yahoo Parenting. “It’s miraculous that a child survived.”

Give your kids the best chance of surviving the unthinkable with these tips on car seat safety.

Make sure the car seat is appropriate for your child’s age and weight.
American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines advise infants and toddlers to ride in a rear-facing seat until age two, minimum, or until they max out the weight or height indicated by the car seat’s manufacturer. That rear facing seat for little ones, like Madison, is vital because “newborns’ heads are 25 percent of their body weight,” says Baer. “Fully grown adults’ heads are only 6 percent. So in an accident, newborns’ heads will pull forward with four times more force than an adult’s.” A pull like that can stretch a child’s spinal cord. Too much stretch and Baer says it breaks. “But if babies are rear facing, that movement has changed,” she says. “They’re cradled it so eliminates that head and neck jolt.”

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Get the car seat installed by a pro.
Seatcheck.org is a database to find people trained to install car seats correctly. “If you go to any police or fire station in your area, a well-intentioned officer will probably try to do it himself but unfortunately they may do it wrong,” says Baer. “You have to go to someone who is trained to make sure it’s properly installed.” When it’s done right, she adds, “The car seat will feel like part of the car. It shouldn’t move more than one inch from side to side.”

For forward-facing seats, she advises checking the tether strap that connects the head of the carseat to the tether anchor in the car. “That decreases how far forward a child’s head will move in a crash by at least six inches,” she says. “That’s the difference between hitting the back of the front seat or the window or not.”

Keep kids in boosters as long as possible.
“The laws of the state and physics rarely coincide,” advises Baer. “Just because your state says it’s legal to ride without a booster, doesn’t mean that’s the right age for your child. It’s rare that kids will do well without one until age 10 or 12 when the seat belt fits properly.”

And the difference in fit really matters. “A booster seat decreases your child’s injury risk significantly compared to a seatbelt alone,” she says, explaining that it’s all about the lap belt. “Boosters keep the lap belt firmly on the child’s strong hipbones during a crash.” Shoulder straps aren’t what injures kids, she says. It’s the lap belt. “If it rides up into the child’s belly during impact in an accident, it can cause injuries to the kidneys, bladder and intestines,” says Baer. “And those are injuries that impact how you live for the rest of your life.”

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