A mother was shocked to find a spike in her infant son’s car seat that had been stabbing him in the back for 18 months.
Nichola Griffiths could not understand her two-year-old Max’s temper tantrums every time he was being strapped into his Britax Black Prince car seat.
The child would fight and struggle when he realized he was being put into his car seat and would scream and cry on every car journey, even making himself sick at times.
Nichola, who’s a mother-of-six, and her husband, Nigel, thought he may have car sickness but were horrified when they put Max in the seat without a shirt on and discovered the plastic spike had created a red mark.
Nichola said:
‘We just thought he was acting up at first. But eventually I went to Boots to see if I could get some car sickness medicine because he was sick a few times.
‘But they said he was too young to be able to take anything so we just had to put up with it really.’
‘We strapped him in without a shirt on because of the hot weather.
‘When we took him out we could see this big red mark on his spine. We only saw it because he wasn’t wearing a shirt. It hadn’t made a mark through his clothes.
‘I thought it was a bee sting at first – but then I couldn’t find the bee in the car.’
The family inspected the car seat that Max had been using for the last 18 months and found a hard plastic spike hidden under the fabric that had been poking their son in the spine the whole time.
Nichola said:
‘It was like putting him in a torture chamber every time we went somewhere for the last two years.
‘I just feel sick thinking about it. It’s really affected me emotionally.
‘I think the worst thing about it is thinking about the risk we’ve put him at.
‘We’ve been on holidays to places like Cornwall and Wales. We’ve literally been up and down the country with him.’If we had crashed or had an accident I dread to think what could have happened with that spike digging into his spine.’
The family got in touch with the retailer and after waiting for 2 weeks for a reply they went straight to the manufacturers Britax.
Britax got back to the family immediately and asked them to send the seat back to them so that they could examine it.
They sent out a replacement car seat for the family to use in the meantime, and even though Nichola didn’t really want to give up the valuable evidence they were stuck without a car seat.
Nichola said: ‘Ever since we’ve started using another seat the problem has just gone away. He loves car journeys now.’
After examining the car seat, Britax agreed that there was an issue. They told the family that it was a one off and that they had removed the spike and that the seat was now safe to use again.
The company is sending the seat back to Nichola and Nigel.
However, Nichola has said that she doesn’t trust the company and doesn’t think that she would use any of their products again.
‘I’m his mother so I’m supposed to protect him and wrap him in up in a bundle of love.
‘Sometimes I think he must have hated me every time I put him in it because he couldn’t have understood why I was doing it to him.
‘His speech is a bit slow, so he couldn’t tell me. He could only act out and make himself sick and so on.
‘This company are really reputable. We didn’t scrimp or cut corners – we got the best we could.
It was meant to protect him and keep him safe, but really it was doing the opposite.’
A spokesperson for Britax said:
‘Safety is our number one priority and the quality of our products is key to our company.
‘We can confirm that we recently investigated an issue with one of our Prince car seats following a communication received from a consumer.
‘We identified a quality issue with the product and a replacement product was supplied.
‘A thorough inspection of our stock and materials in respect of the relevant product range was carried out and we did not find the same or any comparable issues.
‘On this basis we concluded that it was a regrettable, but isolated occurrence. Lines of communication with the consumer remain open. ‘