Stop, Drop and Blog

I don’t often let other people drive my children in their vehicles. People exempt from my overprotective anxiety are grandparents and very trusted friends. However, even those people are not exempt from vehicle accidents. While they are generally safe drivers (with a few lead feet here and there), other people on the road are not exactly the best and safest drivers. Accidents can happen to the best of us. Even me. Or FireDad. With the children in the cars, albeit safely strapped into their carseats.

Imagine, if you will, that your trusted babysitter is out with your child. Through no fault of her own, she is in a horrific crash. She dies on impact. Emergency Medical Technicians responding to the crash assume, of course, that the child in the vehicle with the woman is her own. You, the parent, are not notified that your child has been injured, possibly severely, in an automobile accident for hours. Not until someone comes to the hospital to identify the babysitter and says, “That’s not her baby. She doesn’t have kids. I don’t know who she was babysitting!” Precious time has been lost with your child, possibly time during which you could have been making pertinent medical decisions.

This is not meant to scare you out of sending your child in a vehicle with anyone or putting him in a bubble. It is to remind you that Children Have An iDentity (CHAD). The story above is based on a true story of a babysitter, killed in a crash, and the thirteen-month-old child that she was babysitting named, yes, Chad. Because of that, the CHAD program was started. What is it?

It’s a sticker. You fill out the information of the child (full name, birth date, address), parents (names, home and work phone numbers), physician (name and number) and another emergency contact should the parents not be reachable (their relation to the child and phone number). And then you slap it on the carseat. And voila! Above situation is resolved. It doesn’t magically stop accidents from happening. It just lets you be notified sooner so as not to lose that valuable time.

Some minor problems are things like if you have two children in carseats; if they ever switch seats, the wrong name and birthdate will be on the carseat. However, that’s a minor problem; your information will still be the same and you will still be notified. If you’re sharing carseats with family, coworkers or another child-drive-share type situation, it could become confusing. It’s probably best for children to be seated in their own carseat that is known to fit them properly. (That said, your child needs to be in a carseat or booster. Don’t skip this part until your child reaches the proper age and height requirements for your state.)

Contact your local fire department to see if they have CHAD stickers. If they don’t feel free to visit this website (and, more specifically, this file which is a Word Document) and print out six “stickers” at a time. If you don’t have sticker paper at home, consider printing them on regular paper and taping them to the carseat with packaging tape. Be sure to check every so often to make sure that the sticker is in place and legible.

You can’t control other drivers. You can control how quickly information is passed on to emergency responders and, as such, to you. Children Have An iDentity. Remember that and take action before you drive in the car next time.