When Los Angeles resident Ashley Groussman drove her brand-new 2026 Hyundai Palisade Calligraphy off the lot last August, she was thrilled to have a premium, family-hauling SUV. But that new-car joy evaporated within 24 hours, replaced by absolute terror.
While picking up her 9-year-old daughter from a playdate, a friend sitting in the third row accidentally triggered the power-folding button for the second-row seat where Groussman’s daughter was seated. The heavy, automated seat instantly began collapsing inward. Without a fail-safe or auto-reverse sensor to detect the child, the mechanical seat just kept clamping down.
Groussman had to physically rip her screaming child out of the crushing mechanism to pull her to safety. That harrowing moment kicked off a months-long battle with Hyundai, a battle that has now taken on a tragic new light following a fatal incident in Ohio.
Terrified by what happened, Groussman immediately contacted the automaker and her local dealership to return the vehicle. By September, she was pleading with corporate representatives via email, explicitly stating that families rely on the SUV daily and that the defect posed a massive risk of harm.
She even took her desperation to social media, tagging the manufacturer on X (formerly Twitter) to warn them that her daughter was almost crushed due to the lack of safety sensors.
Despite her desperate warnings, an official inspection in October yielded a deeply frustrating result. A National Consumer Affairs Specialist from Hyundai informed her in November that the seat was “operating normally” based on its design parameters. The company officially closed her file, leaving her stuck with a vehicle she felt was fundamentally unsafe.
A Preventable Tragedy in Ohio
Tragically, Groussman’s worst fears became a reality just 2,400 miles away. Roughly six months after her case was dismissed, a two-year-old girl in Akron, Ohio, lost her life to the exact same automated seat defect.
On the morning of March 7, while waiting in a parked Palisade with her mother and an older sibling, the power seat folded forward and pinned the toddler. According to local police reports, frantic bystanders desperately tried to force the seat back to its upright position, but the mechanism refused to yield. The child tragically suffocated before she could be freed.
“I saw the story about this child that was crushed by the seat, and my heart just sank. I am so heartbroken for this family,” Groussman told News 5 after seeing the headlines.
The Recall – Better Late Than Never
Following intense media scrutiny surrounding the fatal incident, Hyundai issued a statement noting that they take all field reports and customer feedback seriously as part of their safety evaluations.
Since the tragedy, the automaker has initiated a massive stop-sale and officially recalled 68,500 Palisade models (specifically the Limited and Calligraphy trims) across the U.S. and Canada. The official NHTSA recall notice bluntly warns that the “power rear seats may trap a person.”
A company spokesperson confirmed that an interim software update is being deployed to improve the seat’s contact detection, though a permanent mechanical fix is still in the works. Meanwhile, Hyundai finally reached back out to Groussman last week – offering to take back her dangerous SUV, the exact resolution she had begged for months prior.
“No one should have to sit in fear of a child pressing a button and being killed in the back seat of their family car,” Groussman ended.
