Mom & Son Trapped In Fiery Car, Realizes The Only Thing That Can Save Them Is An Item She Bout On Impulse Years Ago

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A California mom was travelling down the freeway with her toddler in the backseat, when another car mowed them down. As her ride filled with smoke, the mother and son found themselves trapped inside. In a moment of frantic desperation, she looked toward the passenger window and saw something yellow that gave her hope.

Makize Zarabi was driving down the 101 through Sherman Oaks that terrifying afternoon, when the driver behind them wasn't paying attention and plowed right into the back of her car. Both the mother and the 3-year-old were wearing seat belts, but they became trapped when Zarabi couldn't get hers to unlatch. Without the ability to break free, her son had no hope of getting out. There was no slack in her seat restraint and smoke started filling the car as desperation set in. That's when she remembered a decision she made six years ago that would now determine the family's fate.

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In that instant, she remembered that years before her son was born, she had made an impulse purchase to buy a little yellow seat belt cutter. She kept it in the glove compartment to the right of the driver's seat, near the passenger window, and now she had the opportunity to use it.

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"I cut myself out of my seat belt and then jumped into the backseat," she told CBS Los Angeles. Her son's seat belt had locked without the ability to release as well, and she was able to free him too with her plastic $7 tool. It may seem silly to some, but it saved both of their lives that day.

The mother suffered a back injury from the accident, but she's happy they are alive today because of an impulse purchase. Zarabi hopes that her story saves other lives by encouraging them to pick up a little seat belt cutter and keep it in their glove box.

As parents, we do all we can to protect our kids, and sometimes the most important ways are the simplest. That's the case with this inexpensive tool that was the only thing that saved this mother and her child from worse injury or possible death.