A teenager died in an accident seconds after she took off her seatbelt to take a selfie. As a result, her grieving parents are launching a campaign to convince people to keep their belts on at all times.
Kailee Mills, 16, was with three friends in a car near her home in Texas, heading out to a Halloween party last October, when the car crashed and rolled over.
The other three teenagers, who had their seatbelts on, survived. But Kailee, a “happy, bubbly and outgoing” girl, who was in the back seat of the car, didn’t make it.
“We know if she had her seatbelt on, she’d still be here,” her father, David said.
Her parents say although she normally followed the law in wearing her belt, she unfastened it to take a selfie with her friend in Spring, near Houston, Texas.
Wendy Mills, Kailee’s mother, said: “All I kept saying was, ‘It’s not real, it’s not real’.”
“She had a laugh that was unique and the laugh alone made you smile, and she loved to make people smile,” Ms Mills told the Fox 26 news station.
Now the couple have launched the Kailee Mills Foundation, which works to provide stickers for car windows and motorbike helmets across the region to remind drivers and passengers to buckle up. They are also joining the Texas Department of Transportation for an awareness drive, using the slogan “Click it or ticket”.
“We just hope no one else has to deal with this,” Mr Mills told Eyewitness News on ABC13.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re going a mile or 100 miles. Everyone always questions ‘Why? Why did this happen?’ And we’re never going to know the answer to that but we know we can do something positive, and I think that’s what she would want us to do.”
Kailee has been described as a fun, lively teenager of whom any parent would be proud. She was an honor student with a 4.3 GPA, enjoyed cheerleading and playing volleyball.
