PACOIMA : Couple Prove Need for Child Safety Seat

When Francisco and Rafaela Sarabia heard that the Los Angeles Police Department was giving away child safety seats Monday morning, they were determined to get one.

With their young child belted carefully on Rafaela’s lap, they drove from their home in San Fernando to the giveaway site in Pacoima--along Laurel Canyon Boulevard north of Paxton Street.

LAPD traffic officers were distributing dozens of informational brochures to commuters at the temporary checkpoint, but had only 10 seats to give away and were reserving them for the neediest of drivers.

Francisco passed the checkpoint and failed to catch the officers’ attention. He decided to circle the block and try again.

As the Sarabias waited under the Simi Valley Freeway for the traffic light on Laurel Canyon Road to change, a vehicle struck the back of their car and--in the words of police officials--”totaled it.”

Rafaela Sarabia was taken to Holy Cross Medical Center where she was treated for a leg injury and then released. Francisco Sarabia and their child, still on Rafaela’s lap during the collision, were unharmed.

Realizing that his wife’s injuries were not serious, Francisco walked back to the checkpoint where several officers had witnessed the accident--and asked them for one of the child safety seats.

“My car doesn’t move, but I want a seat,” Sarabia told them.

They gave him one.

The incident was a bizarre footnote to a successful program, said Officer Tom Souza. “It was pretty obvious these people were needy,” said Souza. “We’re going to try to do this again and hopefully we’ll have twice as many [seats].”

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, about 700 children from birth to age 4 died in traffic accidents in 1994 and about 75,000 were injured.

Safety seats provide more protection than the combination of seat belts and air bags do for adults, and many of those children could have been saved if they had been in a properly used safety seat, said agency spokesman Tim Hurd. California law requires children who are under 4 years old or weigh less than 40 pounds to be placed in safety seats.