Highway Debris Narrowly Misses Newborn
Posted July 21, 2006 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A 5-day-old baby narrowly escaped death on Thursday after a 20 pound piece of metal burst through the Hatfield family’s windshield on highway 400 in Barrie.
The potentially deadly debris, which turned out to be part of a brake shield from a tractor trailer, landed perilously close to the baby’s car seat.
“We were driving away on the 400 and all of a sudden this black thing seemed to appear out of nowhere,” recalled Leah Hatfield, who was driving at the time with her one year-old daughter and her newborn son.
The piece ripped through the windshield and exited out the back window. On the way, it sliced through the headrest right above the baby seat.
The narrow escape from death didn’t hit the family right away.
“It didn’t sink in. Your family almost gone. He is only five days old,” adds dad Jason Hatfield. “I almost lost my family.”
“A few inches down and it would have hit him.”
Unsafe trucks are an ongoing concern. York Police had a safety blitz during the week and out of 57 inspections, 19 trucks were taken off the road for defects.
