Seat Belts DO save lives

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va - A slide show of pictures from devastating crashes in Virginia Beach played on a screen at the Law Enforcement Training Academy. The scenes were of collisions that destroyed property, but lives were spared. The Virginia Beach Police Department presented its "Saved by the Belt" awards Monday.

Aivi Lorenzo was a recipient. Lorenzo was at a stop light in November of last year, when a police officer ran into the back of her minivan.

Lorenzo told WAVY.com, "I just heard a loud noise, and then we started moving forward." She and her two young daughters survived the crash. She was wearing a seatbelt, and her children were restrained properly in child safety seats.

Robert Wilson Seymone told WAVY.com, "I never knew what hit me."

Wilson Seymone said the night a truck slammed into the back of his truck, he was startled and confused. Wilson Seymone now walks with a cane. He said he will need surgery and months of physical therapy, but he's alive.

Wilson Seymone was wearing a seatbelt. He said there is no other option for him. "It's about safety, caring about yourself. You value your life, you do it," he explained.

Another family sat in the auditorium, waiting to be called to the podium. A father, mother, and two little girls had been at a stop light on General Booth Boulevard in December, when a tanker truck slammed into the back of the car. The 3 and 4-year-old little girls were rushed to the hospital and both eventually recovered.

MPO Colin Elliot, with the Virginia Beach Police Department Fatal Crash Team responded to the scene on December 17, 2008. He told WAVY.com "[The girls] were both restrained. Had they not been buckled up, there's no question in our minds they both would have died."

Certificates were passed out to 13 local men and women, including the girls' parents. Each recipient acted on their own behalf, to protect themselves before the crashes happened.