Parents are always warning their children not to put their feet up on the dashboard when they ride in the passenger seat. “It’s dangerous” is what my own mother used to say when I called shotgun and propped my legs up to comfortably rest on the dash, which she’d promptly swat away.
She, and everyone else who said that it was dangerous, is absolutely correct in their warnings. According to the website gm.ca, airbags typically deploy at around 200 mph. They need to open faster than the accident is happening, which caused them to deploy, so they can provide the protection they are meant for. However, such rapid deployment can result in serious injuries, and sometimes they are even be fatal.
Bethany Benson knows this all too well. Back in August of 2010 she was just 22 years old when her life changed drastically. She was returning back from her aunt’s house along with her boyfriend who was driving her mom’s 2002 Pontiac Sunfire. She was trying to get as comfortable as possible so she reclined the seat back, propped her feet up on the dashboard, and fell asleep.
The chain of events that happened next would seriously affect her for the rest of her life. A car and a motorcycle collided, which tragically cost the biker his life. A transport truck came upon the scene and suddenly hit the brakes to try and avoid the accident. The Sunfire was right behind that truck and Bethany’s boyfriend tried as best he could to avoid crashing into it, but it was too late to avoid. The car slammed into the back of the big rig and the passenger side airbag slammed into Bethany’s legs.
When the airbag deployed it hit her hamstrings, which caused her feet to push up through the windshield, and her knees to drive back into her face. When her knees slammed into her eyes they cracked her left eye socket and cheekbone, broke her nose, dislocated her jaw, and caused a tooth to slice through her lower lip. Both her feet were broken in multiple places and she lost her spleen along with her memories. Worst of all she suffered a brain bleed and her entire personality changed.
Now she is moodier and angrier than she was before the accident, and understandably depressed, but these changes caused her to lose friends and even the boyfriend she once had. She’s in constant pain and has been struggling to deal with the after effects of that night ever since. Bethany wants to get one thing across by telling her story. She wants people to know that everything she had, and who she was, all changed because she put her feet up on the dashboard. Please help pass on her story, if it can help save a life or prevent such massive injuries from ever happening, then some good can come from it all.
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