Posted on 07/18/2008 7:42:49 AM PDT by MaryFromMichigan
Sad story.
Many "helpful" tips for the parentally challenged when leaving children in vehicles in hot weather, such as, "Keep your wallet or something you need in the back seat next to your child to remind you not to leave without them." and "Put a Post-it note on the dashboard to remind you that your child is in the back seat, especially when your routine has changed."
(Excerpt) Read more at abclocal.go.com ...
It happened at a home in Livingston County's Green Oak Charter Township.
Both parents were home at the time of the incident. The girl's mother found her and called 911, but it was too late.
Police say they believe the toddler was left in the truck with the windows rolled up for two hours.
It was in high 80s at the time.
Each year, about 30 children die when they are left in hot cars. Leaving a child in the car even while running a quick errand is dangerous.
The temperature in a car with the windows up can rise 20 degrees in just a half hour. A child's body temperature rises much faster than an adult's.
Here are some tips on how to make sure your children stay safe on hot days: Shop at businesses that have drive-throughs or curbside service when you're running errands.
Pay at the pump when gassing up so you can watch your kids. Keep your wallet or something you need in the back seat next to your child to remind you not to leave without them.
Put a Post-it note on the dashboard to remind you that your child is in the back seat, especially when your routine has changed.
Develop a system to check on your child's whereabouts with your daycare provider.
Medical experts say when a child's core body temperature reaches 105 degrees, organs begin to shut down.
Young children and the elderly are the most at risk for heat stroke.
The same dangers apply to pets left in the car during extreme conditions.
I’m having a really hard time understanding how a fairly normal functioning parent could possibly forget their child in a vehicle. I raised four, and never once did this happen. My mom raised five, and had no problems either. No one I know has ever forgotten their child in their vehicle.
That’s a new twist—how do you not notice a 17 month isn’t with you for over two hours when you’re AT HOME?
if you need a post-it note to remind you that your kid is in the car, then you probably don’t have the mental acuity to have children.
What is insane is the very idea that a parent could “forget” about their child in the back seat of their vehicle.
Responsible parenting trumps EVERYTHING, the cellphone, the pack of smokes, the CD/cassette/8-track tapes, the insulated cooler cup full of Gatorade, coffee, Coke, NOTHING supercedes your CHILD!!!
Good God In Heaven, this should be so basic that NO reminders ought to be required.
Guess I grew up in a different America.
What in the world happened here? How can you both be home and not think about your daughter for 2 hours?
Mine is 2 years old and if I don’t hear him for more than 5 minutes I know he’s up to no good.
I have a hard time believing that people are doing this accidently. Nice easy way to get rid of the headache that they have come to see their child as.
I can understand how this can happen...I have lists for myself of things to do and sometimes I get up in the morning and don’t know what to do first...so I try to do 10 things at once...and you forget things and rush rush rush.... I can easily see how this can happen when you try to do to much in little time.
On the other hand, when you were a kid you weren’t strapped in a baby seat in the back - you were crawling around all over the car, possibly riding in the front seat. The legal requirement to put kids in seats (in which they are very likely to fall asleep) has undoubtedly saved some lives in car crashes, but cost some lives in cases like these. Is it a net win? Probably, but this sort of risk-benefit analysis will never be done by the nanny-staters. The only real difference is government power: You couldn’t be arrested and criminally charged for letting your kid be hurt in a crash 30 years ago, because he wasn’t in a child seat, but today the parents CAN be criminally charged both for that and for forgetting their kid in the car, which didn’t use to happen when kids didn’t need to be in car seats.
“I’m having a really hard time understanding how a fairly normal functioning parent could possibly forget their child in a vehicle.”
Some of these people are druggies, but many of the stories in the news seem to occur among career-oriented folks.
Intelligent - focused.
Maybe too focused.
Their brains are churning through their “to do” list, and they get into this early morning trance where they operate on auto-matic pilot.
If your day is centered around taking care of the kids- it is very difficult to forget about them - that’s what is on your mind.
Some people have been pointing out that car seat laws contribute. Even though they save lives in a crash - a sleeping child in the back seat (especially sitting directly behind the driver) can be forgotten.
If some of these kids were riding up front, they would still be alive - but then the air bag could kill them.
When you are waiting for her to die?
Sorry, I think these people deserve to be shot.
If you are so busy that you believe you could actually forget about your child at some point, then maybe you need to cut back and simplify your life.
You're right - many "parents" see their kids for only a few hours during the week--they drop them off at day care at the break of dawn only to pick them up in time to put them to bed. I guess that would make the child a bit more forgettable. /s
Police and firefighters from Livingston County's Green Oak Township found the girl's 26-year-old mother performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation on her unconscious daughter about 4:30 p.m. Wednesday. They took over CPR but the girl was pronounced dead at the scene.
“No one I know has ever forgotten their child in their vehicle.”
Is hard to imagine. But it does happen.
One may have assumed the other was going to get the child out, or already had.
Could have gotten into an argument, or just been busy and not noticed the child.
Problem is, not noticing the child (hear not, see not) is usually the first ‘warning’ something is wrong.
Two hours seems like a long time, to not notice.
Maybe they were smoking crack, and had left junior in the truck, so they could keep it away from little prying eyes.
Guess there weren’t enough post it notes.
Sad, sad story.
Prayers for the family.
That's because they were allowed in the front seat.
If it was just a case of ‘assuming’ someone got the kid out, and going on with ‘routine’, these parents will never forgive themselves.
Sorry to say that you’ve gone off on a tangent here. Your argument regarding child safety seats doesn’t wash as the parent had to have placed the child in the seat in the first place. I’ve driven short distances and long hauls of a couple hundred miles or more with a child in a child safety seat, and never once forgot that I placed that child in that seat. As for your rantings about the criminalizataion of people who do not have their child in a safety seat, it’s the law and it is past time to “get over it”.
“I have a hard time believing that people are doing this accidently. Nice easy way to get rid of the headache that they have come to see their child as.”
Sadly, I have to agree with you.
I simply cannot believe that people forget they have a child in the back seat. I mean kids at 17 months need to be checked for a clean diaper, given a bottle or something to drink, etc.
Kids at this age require so much attention! How in the hell do you forget them?
Allowed by whom? None of my siblings nor I rode in the front seat with the exception of our pick-up truck which did not have a back seat.
I want to know what kind of truck this was.
Some trucks don’t have a back seat.
To which I reply, "balderdash". Having placed the child in that safety seat it is, or should be, damned difficult to "forget" about them, regardless of where in the vehicle they are seated.
If you would like to be added or dropped from the Michigan ping list, please freepmail me.
Gabz--that time of year again ping
I will never understand how the parents of a toddler can lose sight of where their kid is for one hour, much less two or more.
“How in the hell do you forget them?”
It’s the ‘me’ generation.
It starts off with an argument about having to take her to the store. Then going with her, because of the baby. Then the drive back, with more arguing, which continues as you get out of the vehicle, and go into the house. Two hours into the argument, she says, “I had to carry the groceries, I thought you brought missy in and put her in bed!”
He says, “That’s your job!” and then she runs out to the truck.
There was a similar thread a few days ago that contained statistics on “child-left-in-car” deaths. They have gone up dramatically since the law was changed mandating children be put in the back seat.
Whether we would allow that to happen to our own children misses the point. Over the whole country many people do do it and children are dying as a result.
So we see the cascade effect of well-intended but ham-handed safety laws. Mandate air bags even though putting on your seatbelt makes you just as safe. Air bags kill children so mandate children in the back seat, even though putting them in the back seat results in left-in-car deaths.
So 20-30 innocent children are lost each year to save a few drunk drivers who refuse to put on safety belts. That is not a positive trade off in my view.
Oh I more than believe it! People have so much on their minds these days. They are so overworked too. Then there is the stress....gas prices, food prices, you name it. Everything coming at you. People are just too rushed. One parent thinks the other parent has the baby. Then if the routine is changed it blows people away.
Back in my day, the baby was kept in a car seat in the front seat. Now with all these stupid rules, they are in the back seat. So I see how parents forget. Lucky for me I have a Ford Ranger, so I had no choice but to put the baby seat in the front seat.
Sorry, the onus here is on the parents of these children who are left to die of heat stroke in their vehicles, not on these laws that you have a problem with. Do you also have the same opinion regarding parents who allow their young children to have access to a firearm, and wind up killing themselves or someone else - that the fault lies somewhere other than with the parent? If you are going to take on the responsibility of being a parent then you had better make your child (children) your first priority above everything else. Otherwise, don't have children, period.
Maybe there are folks out there who are so damn busy with the minutiae in their lives that they forget their toddlers in cars and allow them to broil to death. Folks. Not parents. Folks.
Inexcuseable.
If this were punishable as involuntary manslaughter, as it damn well ought to be, it might just happen less frequently. /rant
"Honest... I ran out of gas. I, I had a flat tire. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake. A terrible flood. Locusts. IT WASN'T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD."
Sorry, I find no excuse that will mitigate the responsibility of a parent to keep track of their child at all times.
Fortunately, my parents loved me enough to keep me locked in the shade of the trunk.
So 20-30 innocent children are lost each year to save a few drunk drivers who refuse to put on safety belts. That is not a positive trade off in my view.
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DAMN! YOU ARE SO ON THE MONEY!!!!!
What is worse is that everyone in the other car, baby and all will die even though they had their belts on! I have seen this! Drunk drivers kill other people in the worse ways, yet the drunk driver always lives!
I'm with you on this "rant". I do believe that in some states, and depending upon the exact circumstances, this is a chargeable offense as manslaughter.
Very funny Joe! I know that was called a “Rumble Seat”!
This has happened enough now that I think we need a technological solution.
For example, an interlock so that you can’t lock the doors to your car if a seat belt is still locked.
Or maybe a less invasive interlock that you attach to baby car seats, so that when there is a baby in them, you can’t lock the car.
Also, a loud beeper if you open the driver door while the baby is in the car seat.
IT should be simple enough to have a detector for a live body in a car.
Maybe instead of burdening every car with this technology, it should be built into the car seat.
Of course, it’s a lot easier to remember the kid in the seat if the kid is next to you — maybe we should go back to an air-bag override so we can put the kids in the front seat.
Sorry, but left-in-car deaths falls on the parent of the child who died as a result of their incompetence as a parent, not on safety laws which has nothing to do with parents FORGETTING their child was in the carseat. Making excuses for poor parenting based upon your hatred of laws adds nothing to this discussion.
You have some excellent ideas.
Have you considered submitting them to a car company or car seat manufacturer?
I thought this thread could use a little lightening up...If I ever saw a child or animal locked in a car on a Louisiana day, I would not hesitate to shatter a window.
How horrible.
As the Parent of a two year-old, I find myself double-checking everything I do when we’re out travelling around. I don’t know if I could stand the strain of my child dying in such an awful manner.
Parents, please be careful!
my last jeep had a wonderful feature in the front seat. any weight under a certain amount in the passenger seat would automatically kick off the passenger airbags.
I think what happened was the kid fell asleep on the way home and mom left her there to take a short nap while she went in to unload the groceries and to start dinner.
In the back of her mind she probably knew her daughter was safe and then just let time get away from her. On a nice 80 degree day with the air conditioning running she never thought she would forget, but she did.
I would be on suicide watch myself if I ever killed my kid that way though, I truly don’t think I could ever live with it afterwords. The horror of it running through my mind 24/7, the looks from friends and relatives, the guilt, I just don’t think I could.
If some of these kids were riding up front, they would still be alive - but then the air bag could kill them.
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I can turn my airbag off with my key. I do not know if you can in other cars.
If they had a law that required that the gun be left where the kids could get to it, then yes, I would blame the law, even though you could still avoid the kids being shot if you were very good at watching them when they were around the gun.
When you are looking for a solution to a problem, affixing blame is useless. Noting that a law has led to more deaths does not prevent you from blaming the parents, but blaming the parents doesn't help you fix the problem, unless you have a scheme for seeing into the future to determine which parents will do this, and stopping them from having children.
People forget things that are not in front of them. It's easy to notice things that are there, it's harder to notice things that aren't there.
I would note that, while not nearly as important as children, we have done a lot of things to make cars TELL us stuff we have forgotten. They turn off the headlights for us because we forget they are on. They beep if you get out with the engine running. Some beep when you have the car in reverse. They beep at you to put on your seatbelt. They won't let you lock the doors if the keys are inside.
People are forgetful. The kids in the seat asleep. You have groceries, including frozen stuff. So you get out, and you unload the groceries first to get them in the freezer, before you get the kid -- since when you get the kid, they might wake up and then you will have to deal with that.
So you bring the groceries in, you start putting the frozen stuff away, there's not enough room so you rearrange things in the freezer. You stuff them in and the phone rings, then your wife yells about the milk still being on the floor, you run back and put the rest of the cold stuff away, your wife meanwhile closes the front door which you left open to "remind" you.
Then your wife is yelling about something else, you get into a discussion, then you sit down and relax, and an hour later your wife says "where's the kid".
Sure, this should NEVER happen. And it would NEVER happen to you, or to any REAL parent.
But since it does seem to happen (and probably a LOT more than the 30 deaths a year -- who knows how many times the kids are found without needing medical treatment), we should probably think of how we can help avoid it, rather than complain that we shouldn't do anything since it's the parent's fault.
Yes, but my point is....I’M NOT ALONE. So many people I know who work full time, have families and do volunteer work, or who are single moms working....rushing to the store, paythe bills and get supper on teh table...well...I can easily see forgetting the baby was in the shopping cart. I’m just saying....that I can easily understand the situations. You have 1000 things on your mind....you’re bound to forget things. The only time I get some time to calm down and think.... is when I’m here at work...I get a break here.
Yes, but my point is....I’M NOT ALONE. So many people I know who work full time, have families and do volunteer work, or who are single moms working....rushing to the store, paythe bills and get supper on teh table...well...I can easily see forgetting the baby was in the shopping cart. I’m just saying....that I can easily understand the situations. You have 1000 things on your mind....you’re bound to forget things. The only time I get some time to calm down and think.... is when I’m here at work...I get a break here.
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