Services united in fight to save lives
WHEN paramedics arrived at a Kaimkillenbun crash, they found a toddler had been thrown from the vehicle while still restrained to his car seat.
The boy suffered critical head and arm injuries, but Queensland Ambulance Service Acting Assistant Commissioner Tony Armstrong said he would have died if not for that car seat.
“It shows that the safety measures we have in place, especially with child restraints, really do save lives,” he said.
It was a shocking lead up to Road Safety Week, which started yesterday.
As of Sunday afternoon, paramedics have responded to 499 crashes in the Toowoomba region during 2020.
Ten people have died in
Darling Downs crashes in 2020 while 42 have died in the wider Queensland Police Service Southern Region, which extends to the Northern Territory border.
About 15 per cent of those fatal crashes involved motorists not wearing their seatbelts, 32 per cent were caused by speed and 28 per cent involved a drink or drug affected driver.
This year, police, paramedics and fireys have come together to ask that all motorists drive with extra caution and attention to keep those sad statistics low.
Queensland Road Safety Week runs until August 29, a period when there is traditionally a spike in crashes.
Police will conduct highvisibility patrols of rural roads and 100km/h zones, while rolling out an information campaign targeting grey nomads, young drivers and motorcyclists.