PONDERAY, Idaho — A two-year-old girl was killed in a car crash near Ponderay, Idaho, on Monday morning.
A 1998 Subaru Forester driven by Sandpoint resident Keanu M. Dooley, 22, was hit by a 2017 Ford truck driven by 29-year-old Wesley J. Free of Sagle as Dooley attempted to turn left onto Sunnyside Road, police said.
Free’s truck hit the passenger side of Dooley’s car where a child was sitting in a child-seat, according to the release. Police said she was properly restrained. The child died at the scene and neither man was wearing a seat belt, according to police.
Idaho State Police tweeted that the girl was 2 years old.
In December, the mother of a little girl thrown from a car during a fatal crash on Highway 395 near Loon Lake, Washington, credited a car seat with saving her child's life. However, Washington State Patrol said that car seat didn't fit inside mother Catherine Howell's vehicle properly, despite her efforts to strap it in securely with the seatbelts.
“Defensive driving and a properly fitted and installed car seat saved Joy’s life. Thank you Graco for your product. We will be throwing away this car seat, but we will replace it with another one of your products,” Howell wrote on Facebook.
Howell's Facebook post went viral and she said she hopes it will educate people about the benefits of car seat diligence.
"The car seat is the one thing you buy specifically to save your child's life, so if you're not doing it properly you are ruining its design," she said. "Every time you put your child in the car seat it's important."