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Expectant mother Alysa St. Cyr. of Rumford, (right) and the baby’s future grandmother, Kelly Martin of Peru, look on as Jay Police Officer Anthony York explains how to properly install a child car seat during a free car seat check event Thursday at Med-Care Ambulance in Mexico. Bruce Farrin/Rumford Falls Times

MEXICO — Alysa St. Cyr. of Rumford, whose baby is due at any time, drove to the Med-Care Ambulance parking lot Thursday afternoon with her partner, Zachary Zinck, and soon-to-be first-time grandmother Kelly Martin of Peru.

“I wanted to make sure the car seat base and everything was all safe,” said the expectant mother.
There, Maine Bureau of Highway Safety sponsored a free two-hour event at the 290 Highland Terrace, where parents and caregivers learned how to properly install their child’s car seat and have their seat checked by certified child passenger safety technicians.

On hand were Erica Davis, highway safety coordinator for the Maine Bureau of Highway Safety, Corey Perreault, child passenger safety instructor, as well as Officer Doug Maifeld of the Rumford Police Department and Anthony York of the Jay Police Department.

Perreault said, “We find that logistically, about 80 percent of car seats are misused, on a regular basis. In some cases, that misuse could be harmful to the child should there be an accident, whether the seat is not secured enough in the vehicle, or if the harnesses are not tight enough, in a crash, the baby or child could get ejected.”

She said that over time, the child safety seats have become “easier to use, but they’re still pretty confusing. I’ve been doing this since 1997, and I still have a job. And part of it is, you get new clients all the time. New parents, and a child car seat is something we don’t spend a lot of time thinking about, until we need them.”

Perreault said it takes about a half hour to 45 minutes to go over the car seat check.

She said Maine Bureau of Highway Safety (www.maine.gov/dps/bhs) has a section on child passenger highway safety on their website. “There, you can get general instructions, but car seats are not made the same. It’s best to do an appointments because you can usually do hands-on there. They also watch out car seat recalls as well and get the word out to people.

Perreault noted that when there isn’t a car seat check event available, people can also set up an appointment with the Rumford Police Department (207-364-4551) or Med-Care (207-364-8748).

Bruce Farrin is editor for the Rumford Falls Times, serving the River Valley with the community newspaper since moving to Rumford in 1986. In his early days, before computers, he was responsible for...

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