Mom shares heartbreaking story to educate parents on car seat safety

A mother from Colorado is sharing her heartbreaking story after losing her three-year-old son, Kyle, in a car accident 12 years ago.

Christine Miller believes that a five-point-harness car seat could have helped prevent her son’s death — and now she’s hoping her story will educate parents on the dangers of booster seats for toddlers.

“I had no idea that morning with him would be the last time I heard his adorable laugh and sweet voice call me mommy and see his eyes lit up with life and wonder,” Miller wrote in a now-viral Facebook post, written 12 years to the date she lost Kyle. “I still remember so clearly how he would only fall asleep if I laid down with him and let him stroke my cheek, and I’d whisper ‘I love you’ in his ear after he fell asleep.”

Miller says that there isn’t a day that goes by that her heart doesn’t ache with missing Kyle and wondering what he would be like now. She likens losing her son to “being plunged straight into hell,” — a pain and agony beyond description.

“People see me and think I’m just a regular person, but I’m not. I’m scarred beyond belief. I’ve walked through hell and still carry a piece of it inside me.”

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“I think the hardest part of it all is knowing easily preventable it was. That’s the dagger that twists in my heart,” she stated. “Had I just known about the dangers of booster seats for toddlers, had somebody warned me, I would have put him in a five-point harness car seat … and that simple difference would have changed everything. It would have saved his life.”

After losing Kyle and going through a difficult divorce, Miller found herself as a single mom raising three children. She met her current husband, Caleb, on a movie set where they were both actors. After marrying and having two children together, the couple decided to document their lives raising all five children, while balancing being actors and running their own business in their YouTube channel, Growing Humans.

In a recent video, Miller explained that Kyle died after their minivan was hit by a car that ran a red light. Kyle weighed about 40 pounds, and was sitting in a booster seat. Miller believed it was the correct restraint for a child of his age and size, but she says he was thrown from the vehicle and died.

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“Think of all the awareness campaigns you see on a daily basis…none of those diseases pose as a great of a risk of death as car accidents,” Miller added. “And deaths by car accidents can, in many cases, be prevented by proper car seat usage! Why are we not talking about this?! Why are there no awareness campaigns? We try to protect our kids from everything from pesticides, GMOs, sharp furniture corners and cancer, but then buckle them into unsafe car seats. This needs to change.”

Christine longs to hug her son and tell him she loves him and watch him grow into a man, but she says she lost all of that “because of ONE mistake,” so that’s why she’s it her life’s mission to prevent this tragedy from happening to anyone else. She is urging parents to research proper car seat usage and to talk about it with everyone they know. She says she’s even lost friends and family members because they were offended that she pointed out their incorrect car seat usage.

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“But to say nothing and have another child’s death on my conscience is not something I’m willing to risk. So please, speak up if you see a child in a dangerous situation. You could save a life. Children’s lives are more important than parents egos,” she concluded. “If someone would have done so for me, Kyle would still be here. We have a lot of work to do but I know we can save lives if we work together to share Kyle’s story and message. Car seat safety is not a “parenting choice”, it’s a matter of physics and facts.”

Car injuries are the leading cause of injury-related death for American and Canadian children, although the injury risk can be lowered by correctly using the right type of restraint for the child’s age and size.

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