Whooping and hollering and carrying sticks. Engrossed in one of those fantastic, testosterone-driven combat games boys invent.
Kyle Sorensen isn't one of them. The 10-year-old is tucked into his bedroom, playing a quiet game of "Deal or No Deal." With his nurse.
Two years ago, Kyle was in a car accident. His mom, Lisa, doesn't remember exactly how it happened. Driving a sick baby to Primary Children's Medical Center, she passed out. By the time she woke up a week later, her mischievous son was a quadriplegic, paralyzed from the neck down, breathing with the help of a machine. She had strapped him into the minivan with an adult seat belt that ended up smashing his spinal cord.
The Sorensens had hoped Utah legislators would change state law this year to require booster seats for kids 5- to 8-years-old - just to save another child from Kyle's fate.
But state lawmakers knew better. In one of those mind-blowing, logic-defying House floor debates, representatives killed the bill.
They whined. Centerville Rep. Roger Barrus, a Republican, complained that the bill might require grandparents to keep booster seats on hand for their grandchildren. West Jordan Republican Rep. Wayne Harper worried the bill would have required his short teenage son to sit in a booster seat.
And Provo Republican Rep. Chris Herrod wondered if his quick, two-block trips to church each Sunday would break the law. If an accident happened, could a parent be charged with negligent homicide? Could the Division of Child and Family Services step in to take a child? Would families be torn apart?
"My concern is making good people break the law," Herrod said.
Nothing like a convoluted parents-rights theory to confuse conservative Utah lawmakers or give them the excuse they need to kill a Democratic colleague's bill. A child's life, apparently, is incidental to a parent's or grandparent's convenience.
Legislators proudly spout their concern for children. This year, they passed legislation to make it easier for grocery stores to cover up scantily clad models on magazine covers, make killing a child a capital offense, block access to online porn at school and add another 15,000 poor children to the state's health insurance rolls.
But when it comes to oen of the biggest risks to children - dying in a car accident - lawmakers just couldn't act.
Between 1999 and 2005, 48 kids died on Utah roads. Last year, Primary Children's Medical Center treated 34 children after car accidents - just four were strapped into booster seats. Statistics from State Farm and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia found that of nearly 900 kids in side-impact crashes two years ago, those in booster seats had 70 percent fewer injuries than those restrained by adult belts.
Lisa Sorensen has regrets. "If only I'd known," she says. Kyle needs a nurse 24 hours a day to make sure his airway and vents don't become blocked. The family's medical bills have topped $2 million. She doesn't have the heart to tell him his dreams of becoming a doctor or firefighter are unrealistic.
"Somebody has to look out for children," the heartbroken mom says. "They're not going to tell you, 'Mom, put me in a booster seat.' "
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Primary Children's Medical Center, PTA and State Farm all backed the bill. Thirty-eight states have such laws.
Utah lawmakers, however, didn't want to be one of that crowd. Herrod tried to explain his thinking: "We can't always legislate common sense."
Unfortunately, many Utahns can't elect it either.
walsh@sltrib.com
