Safety lesson from near-fatal fall

Roger Moroney
For Hannah Ross, it was an exciting way to start enjoying the fun of Art Deco Weekend last year.
The bubbly Napier four-year-old, dressed by mum Linsay, in a wonderful old-fashioned dress and with her hair beautifully brushed, climbed into one of her grandparents' vintage cars for the drive from their Whirinaki home into Napier.
Her little sister Eva clambered into the back to join her, and with Linsay's partner Jason driving, they motored sedately down the road with Linsay following in the family car.
Just three or four minutes into the journey Hannah leaned forward to close the partially open rear window on her side. But she pulled at the wrong lever.
She pulled the door lever instead.
On pretty well any other occasion two things would have happened. The door would have only partially opened as the wind would have blown it back ... and she would have been restrained by a seat belt.
But vintage cars are not required to have seat belts. And this car had rear doors which opened forward, not backward - dubbed "suicide" doors.
In a terrible couple of seconds, the family's happy outing went horribly, almost tragically, wrong.
Hannah was flung out onto the road. Her little sister could only watch bewildered.
"I thought the girls had thrown a rag doll out," Linsay said.
But the realisation it was Hannah hit like a hammer blow.
But what it even more terrifying was that Hannah tumbled across the median line and came to a dazed halt in the path of a fully-laden logging truck coming in the opposite direction.
The driver said later he initially thought nothing more than a bag of clothes had been thrown from the car, but instinctively braked to avoid it.
He was astonished to see the "bag of clothes" get to its feet, with head bleeding heavily, and scramble off the highway into the long roadside grass.
The driver and Linsay both raced to where the stunned youngster stood.
Linsay was overwhelmed with relief that her daughter was conscious and relatively alert, after what had just happened to her.
But for her partner Jason Ross, there was a terrifying 60-metre run back to what he was sure was a tragedy.
A few seconds after Hannah had fallen out he heard the rear door creaking and glanced back to see it hanging open - and Hannah gone.
He also saw the stopped logging truck, and Linsay running in a panic to the side of the road.
"It was terrible for him, terrible."
It was something Jason still struggles with.
"The whole year's been carnage."
He said it was nothing short of a miracle Hannah was still with them today.
Despite later requiring 58 stitches to her scalp just on the hairline, and six behind one ear, Hannah stayed calm. "The only time she screamed was when she was put into the ambulance," Linsay said.
"When she had been in the long grass a ladybird had landed on her. They laid her down in the ambulance and she saw the ladybird, which was still with her, she was scared she would squash it or hurt it."
Staff at the Hawke's Bay Hospital were "magnificent" Linsay said as they cared for Hannah during her three-day stay. After being discharged she received home medical care for three to four weeks and has gradually recovered, although she tires easily and sometime struggles to concentrate.
Turning five and starting school last July meant meeting with school teachers to let them know Hannah may need rests during the day, said her mum.
"They were really good about it."
Linsay said remarkably, despite the head injuries, Hannah had a clear recollection of what happened and remembered it all. She herself remembers how distraught she felt when Hannah looked at her and told her she was "sorry for falling out the door".
"I said 'no, I should never had put you in that position'."
Linsay said it was an unfortunate accident that no one could have foreseen.
"It was a momentary lapse. We just didn't think. " It can happen so quickly, so easily."
She wanted to tell the story of what happened so people, when taking children for drives in older cars without seat belts, could learn from it.
"I don't want to be a killjoy, she said, adding that she loved the old cars and the fun and enjoyment they provided. "But I just want people to be conscious of the dangers when youngsters are in the car."
This year they will attend the weekend they missed last year, but will travel in the family car, and one of the first Art Deco stops will be to see the lovely old cars.
Linsay said she accepted a police decision to prosecute them as the law states that children under five in any vehicle must be in an approved seat restraint, but she doubted if everyone was aware of that requirement.
* Police confirmed that vintage and classic cars built in the pre-seat belt era were not required to have them. The fitting of belts was up to the individual owners, although they were required to fit restraints for under-fives.
The dilemma of how to fit suitable restraints to a car without seat belts was something the owners had to address.