Moments before a Volkswagon sped in reverse and fell upside down into a canal, Evan Sinisgalli unbuckled his seat belt and somehow survived the crash.
Three other teens in the car, all of whom police said were wearing their seat belts, drowned.
After last month’s crash in Coral Springs, some teenage drivers have questioned whether seat belts lower their chances of surviving a canal accident.
“The only one who did get out [of the car] did not have his seat belt on,” said Peter Malcolm, 15, a 10th-grader at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, where all the teens in the crash attended.
“The seat belts must have locked up, or they were knocked out when they went in the water,” he said.
Krystal Goldstein, 18, a senior, was concerned a malfunctioning seat belt could trap her if she were in a sinking car, and has debated the issue with her mother.
“I don’t know what I would have done in that situation,” she said. “It’s a scary thought.”
But police and firefighters say the fatal canal crash was a worst-case scenario, where the car landed upside down in water at night, resulting in little to no visibility.
They say the crash shouldn’t discourage teens from wearing seat belts, which drivers should keep fastened only until after a car has fallen in water and isn’t at risk of striking other objects.
Otherwise, a collision could “knock you unconscious and then your chances of getting out are very slim,” said Michael Moser, a spokesman for Coral Springs Fire Department.
Coral Springs police haven’t determined whether the three teens — Anthony Almonte, Sean Maxey and Robert Nugent, all 16 – drowned Nov. 15 because their seat belts malfunctioned or got in the way.
A Volkswagon consultant is helping police determine whether anything in the car malfunctioned, police Sgt. Joe McHugh said.
However, it’s rare for seat belts to malfunction, especially if the car is relatively new, like the 2007 Volkswagon the teens were riding in, said Yoli Buss, director of driver improvement programs for AAA Auto Club South, in Tampa.
“Chances are slim to none that there was seat-belt failure,” she said. “The chance that three seat belts would malfunction? That would be an extreme case.”
On the contrary, she said, it’s common for seat belts to save people in such crashes.
Also, only a small percentage of traffic fatalities involve people driving into bodies of water, even in South Florida, where many streets and highways are bordered by canals.
State records show 697 people died in traffic accidents last year in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties. Two percent of those, or 14 people, died in canal crashes.
Federal studies have indicated teenage drivers and passengers are among those least likely to wear their seat belts, but many teens say they know seat belts’ importance.
Malcolm and Goldstein said they still wear their seat belts despite teens questioning their effectiveness in canal crashes.
Boca Raton High junior Chelsea Hemedinger, 17, never gave thought to a safety belt being anything but safe, but she did get nervous thinking about the possibility.
“Right when I get in [the car], it’s the first thing I do,” she said. “It’s like a rule.”
Nathan Carter, 18, a senior, drives regularly and doesn’t think there’s reason to dispute a seat belt’s effectiveness.
“There’s only a small percentage of the time that a seat belt won’t save your life,” he said.
The teens in the canal crash were celebrating their school’s Homecoming past midnight when they got into a fender-bender with an Acura on University Drive, police said.
Sinisgalli, in the front passenger seat, told police he unbuckled his seat belt after the fender-bender, expecting to get out of the car, but instead Maxey, the driver, put the car in reverse, police said.
McHugh said three of the car’s four windows were partially open when the car landed upside down in the canal’s “pitch dark” water.
The cause of the canal crash remains under investigation, as well as piecing together why Sinisgalli escaped and the other teens didn’t, McHugh said.
McHugh said Sinisgalli initially spoke with police but has since declined to provide additional details. Sinisgalli’s family similarly told the Sun Sentinel he was declining comment.
Stoneman Douglas High last week arranged for two safety experts to give a presentation, warning the school’s juniors and seniors of the dangers of not wearing seat belts, said Marcy Smith, a schools spokeswoman.
Goldstein, who attended it, said it “put things in perspective.” Still, she said she plans to soon buy special devices meant for emergencies in water.
“What if this were to happen to me?” she asked. “I feel like you should at least have the thing that breaks the window or cuts seat belts.”