With seatbelts, mother and 3 children survive crash

Lori Luoma loaded her three oldest children into their car on the second day of school, Aug. 28, buckling them in before setting out on Interstate 15 on Gore Hill.

After pulling onto the interstate heading north around 7:30 a.m., she began to pass a line of semis and cars. Luoma passed one of the semis and one of the cars without incident, but as she began to pass the second car, the driver of that vehicle pulled out in front of her.

Luoma swerved to miss the car, wound up in the median, and swerved to get back on the road. Looking in her rearview mirror, she saw another semi coming behind her, so she swerved again, sending the vehicle into a rollover.

Luoma’s car landed on its wheels in the southbound lane. She and her three children, Caeley, 9, Connor, 6, and Reagan, 4, were unharmed.

On Tuesday, Luoma was presented with a Saved by the Belt award from Buckle up Montana, a coalition of groups whose goal is to encourage people to wear their seat belts and properly restrain their children, explained Mary Kay Burns, a public health nurse at Cascade City-County Health Department.

The modest presentation took place in the Cascade County Commission chambers.

Modest or not, Cascade County Commissioner Jane Weber said, “This is a cause for celebration ... They chose to use their seat belts.”

Montana Highway Patrol Trooper James Humiston, who responded along with Cascade County sheriff’s deputies and Great Falls Emergency Services, nominated Luoma for the award.

“I’m happy you took the time to put your children in child safety seats,” Humiston told Luoma.

According to Humiston, the “room to live” in the vehicle’s cab is intact after a fatal crash. The fact that the occupants of the vehicles did not wear seat belts can contribute to their deaths, he said.

In Montana, seven of the 10 people killed in vehicle crashes are unbuckled, according to Buckle up Montana’s website, buckleup.mt.gov.

Before their crash, Luoma’s children didn’t object to wearing seat belts, she said. After, they seem to have learned just how important it is.

Caeley nods when she’s asked if she thinks wearing a seat belt is important.

“I want them to learn young,” Luoma said, holding her youngest daughter, 1-year-old Finley, on her hip.