9-year-Old Crashes Car While Driving On Grandmother's Lap

A 9-year-old was left with serious injuries including injury to his liver after he crash a car into a home while driving on his grandmother's lap on Wednesday night in Caldwell County, North Carolina.

Photo: WSOCtv

According to his sister, Allie Wright, His flip-flop caught under the brake and gas, and when the grandmother Dare Goble tried to step on the brake, the gas pedal also went down and they accelerated, then the car veered hard to the right across the front yard, where it hit a home on Wilderness Lane.

Family members said the boy was airlifted to Carolinas Medical Center with an injury to his liver and the grandmother also with a head injury.

Deputies who confirmed that the airbag deployed, said most people don't realize the danger of allowing a child to ride anywhere in the front seat, especially on someone's lap. Airbags can deploy when a car is going just 24 km/h, but the bag itself comes out much faster at a speed of nearly 324 km/h.

"If you have a child or another person sitting on top of you, that airbag doesn't have time to fully expand," Caldwell County Lt. Brine Brenham said.

Wright also said her grandmother has been "beating up her own self up" over the accident, "Just here thinking she's done it a million times, taking him right up the road and didn't think anything about it,” said.

No one has been charged in connection with the accident.