When seat belts attack

Calvin's neck got stuck in his seat belt today.

Like most modern seat belts, this one has an automatic locking retractor.  You know the kind -- when you pull it all the way out, it locks such that it cannot be extended again until it has been completely retracted.  As it retracts, you can hear it go "click, click, click" as the internal ratchet mechanism winds until it releases.

Calvin's belt was evidently in lock mode when he was buckled into the seat today.  This rather unusual condition can be explained by the fact that the rear sliding door on his side of the van (driver's side) has been semi-broken for months.  The door stopped sliding smoothly sometime last summer -- probably July or August.  Like most car problems, it was intermittent at first and then became progressively worse.  When we were on vacation in Salzburg in October, I had a really hard time getting it closed.  Since then, we had just decided to stop using that door it until we get it fixed.  The other door had a similar problem a few years ago and it was fixed by replacing the center roller.  The same part probably needs to be replaced again; I just haven't gotten around to looking into it because I know the German Honda dealer won't have the part we need and it is going to be a big hassle.  Until today, this had not been a huge inconvenience so I was more than willing to wait until the weather warmed up in the spring.

Since the sliding door was not being opened, we had developed an alternate ways to buckle Calvin into his seat.  It would be nice if he was able to buckle himself into his seat but his arms just aren't long enough to reach down from his car seat.  He is able to reach down and unbuckle the belt if the latch is already buckled in place but he is not quite able to buckle himself into the seat.  The first thing I tried was reaching across his seat from the passenger side of the van.  But that didn't really work because Sara's seat (generally with her in it) was in the way.  So I came up with something else.

The usual method of fastening Calvin into his seat has been rolling down the window on his door, reaching into the van from the outside and pulling the seat belt across his body (leaving lots of extra slack in the belt and telling him to hold it in place.  Then the driver gets into the driver's seat, turns around, and buckles him in from the front seat.  It is definitely a nuisance (especially in the rain) but it hasn't been horrible once we got used to it.

Evidently the belt had been completely retracted into lock mode when Calvin was buckled into his seat today.  I don't know if this has happened in the past since I haven't really been paying attention to it.  Until today it never even occurred to me that this might be a problem.  When Tina arrived at home, Calvin reached down and unbuckled his seat belt.  The rapidly retracting belt created a loop that wrapped around his neck and left him standing up against the closed door, lassoed in place.  Since the belt was in lock mode and had not been completely retracted, it could not be pulled out to create enough slack to free him.  And the more he wiggled and squirmed, the tighter the noose became as the belt click-click-clicked back into the ratchet.

To make matters worse, I had been in Darmstadt all day with some coworkers so Tina had been unable to get in touch with me to tell me about the problem.  When we were leaving Darmstadt, I saw on my phone that she had called so I returned the call and got the news that Calvin was trapped in his seat belt.  Fortunately, he had only been stuck for about 20 minutes when I talked with her.  Of course, she was a bit animated and without seeing it myself, it was hard to completely understand how this could have happened.  The situation was difficult to explain over the phone; I thought he was still sitting in his car seat.

I got back to the house about an hour after we left Darmstadt to see the situation for myself.  Fortunately Oscar was home (he had just been picked up from school) so he had been able to keep Sara entertained in the house while Tina worked on freeing Calvin in the van.  By the looks of things, Keebler® Scooby-Doo!™ Graham Cracker Sticks and York peppermint patties had been used to help pass the time.

It was clear to me almost immediately that his head was not going to fit through the loop around his neck.  There were maybe only two or three inches of slack around his neck.  At this point he had been stuck for approaching an hour and a half and the only option appeared to be cutting the belt with scissors.  The locking mechanism definitely was not going to release until it had been completely retracted and that was going to be impossible with a loop around Calvin's neck.

I really did not want to cut the belt so we started looking more closely at the belt mechanism.  Tina noticed that the driver's seat belt was attached with a bolt at the bottom.  I had to slide a plastic cover out of the way to see that the seat belt wrapped around Calvin's neck was attached the same way.

I grabbed the ratchet set from the basement and stopped to pick up the camera on the way back out to the car.  The bolt was a 14mm hexagon; I had it off in less than a minute.  Then we were able to unwrap the belt from around Calvin's neck and he was free.  I reattached the bolt and the door closed properly the first time I tried it.