Parents Reconstruct Crash That Hurled Tot From Car : ‘It All Happened So Fast’

Two-year-old Adashia Jolviet and her newly acquired stuffed raccoon lay peacefully Thursday afternoon in a hospital bed, less than 24 hours after the toddler was thrown through the back window of her parents’ car on the San Diego Freeway in Seal Beach.

“It all happened so fast, I can’t even remember much of it,” said Kim Jolviet, watching her daughter sleep at Long Beach Memorial Hospital. Tiny Adashia, only 19 pounds, was reported in fair condition after her ordeal, suffering only some minor head and hand injuries.

The family was coming home from Dove Canyon when a chartered bus carrying 22 passengers to Los Angeles rear-ended their 1985 Volkswagen Jetta, which flipped over twice.

Adashia, who was not in a child-restraining seat, was thrown out and landed near a back tire of the car after the vehicle rolled over and came up on its wheels. The impact broke out all the glass, and Adashia went flying through a back window.

“We put her in the back with a seat belt on, thinking that that would be safe,” Jolviet said. “She likes to sit back there and play with her building blocks and other toys she brings with her on long trips.”

The child’s father, Robert Lee Williams, who was driving when the accident occurred, sustained minor head and hand injuries and was listed in good condition at Harbor General Hospital in Torrance. Kim Jolviet suffered only minor bruises.

“We are all lucky to be alive,” said Jolviet, who says she usually puts Adashia in a restraining seat. “The car seat was in my mother’s car and we usually pick it up whenever we go somewhere in another car. This time we just didn’t.”

Jolviet maintains though, that even with the safety seat, her 19-pound daughter would have been hurt.

“She is so small for her age that she slips out of everything,” Jolviet said. “We adults both had on seat belts, but when the car rolled over we slipped out of them. Seat belts work best when the car isn’t upside down.”

The California Highway Patrol reported that the accident occurred when Williams slowed his speed in the northbound car-pool lane in response to a CHP officer’s warning that a stalled car was in the lane ahead.

“We didn’t know what the officer was trying to tell us, so we just slowed up,” Jolviet said. “But the bus behind was going so fast that we knew he couldn’t stop in time.”

The driver of the bus, Caren Vartgess, 44, will be cited for driving at an unsafe speed, while Adashia’s parents will receive a citation for driving without a child safety seat, according to the CHP.

Though the hospital has given Adashia a few new toys to replace those lost on the freeway, her favorite toy, a doll named Robin, isn’t easily forgotten.

“She woke up during the night asking for her red-headed doll,” Jolviet said. “I offered her the one the hospital gave her, but she shook her head and went back to sleep. That means she’s still as stubborn as ever and hopefully OK.”