Do you wear your seatbelt

Specialties Emergency

Published

After all these years in the ER, I have worked with so many ER docs, Nurses, Techs, etc. And I have seen so amny not wear their seat belts, and helmets. Do we as ER nurses think we are immune to all of this. Do we become complacent. Do we become jaded or what. Seriously though. So many really do not use their seat belts.

For the record I wear mine. I also wear a helmet on my motorcycle.

Always! Like the previous poster said, I feel naked without it.

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Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.

seatbelt goes on before i start the car -- mine and any passengers, too!

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Specializes in CAPA RN, ED RN.

I first started in ED in 1975. There were no seatbelt laws then. When I saw people's faces needing plastic surgery after wrecks I decided that I was going to do all I could to keep my face from getting mashed up. I have worn my seatbelt ever since.

One day my 8 yr old son decided he was going to be naughty because I didn't give him something he wanted. We were in the car and he said "I'm not going to wear my seatbelt if you don't ____". It was the biggest threat he could think of at the moment. I still chuckle but it gives you an idea of how the culture has developed in my family.

About 5 years ago while I was still dating the man that I eventually married we were going freeway speeds when a car just in front of us spun out. It hit the guardrail in the median and then shot back across directly in front of us and across three lanes of traffic. We were inches from being a wreck of metal and us all over the freeway. I can't imagine why it didn't touch another car but the spinner ended up facing oncoming traffic on the shoulder. The lady driving in the lane next to us looked like she had seen a ghost. I looked and both my husband-to-be and his daughter were not wearing seatbelts! After that little learning opportunity everyone once again wears their belts. I wouldn't be without them.

Yes, we have seatbelt laws and they are enforced! We also have drivers with alcohol reporting laws.

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I used to wear my seatbelt half the time, but as an EMT, went to an MVA where 2 passengers had the same mechanism of injury- car vs. tree. 1 wearing seatbelt taken to ER and released same day, guy w/o seatbelt- DOA

Now 100% seatbelt user.

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