9-1-1 tapes released in baby car death

KCBD-TV, Lubbock, TX ^ | August 4, 2005

[WestTexasWend]

The death of a 1-year-old boy is prompting a local day care to change its policy. Madison's Place Daycare will now call every parent if a child is not dropped off by 10 a.m. The change comes immediately after a Lubbock mother forgot to drop her toddler off at day-care. By the time she remembered, he was dead.

[jocon307]

Your nephew is lucky. He also needs to focus more.

[fishbabe]

Its time for a tough love law...The law states,you leave a baby in the car and it dies,you go to prison for manslaughter...At least a year..Bet you the baby deaths in the hot cars would slow to a crawl...

[Trust but Verify]

Negligence at best. Throwing the mother in prison is not going to 'punish' her any more than the thought of having killed her own child will. It also will not serve as a deterrent. The crime here is that she forgot.

[Cheburashka]

Right at the moment, it's about saving children. And I agree with that. After all, if the child does not show up where it belongs(in this case day care), there could be any number of problems, including kidnapping.

However, once you put this obligation into law, the lawyers will twist it into a cause for monetary damages, not a simple safety backup procedure.

Sometimes parents make mistakes. Their children will suffer the consequences. Trying to obscure this fact of life turns the whole world into Hillary Rodham's village.

The world it a tough place for a child when the parents cannot/will not protect it. "The Village" cannot substitute for them.

[OldFriend]

Our public school makes it clear that the parent must call the school if their child will be absent. If the parent doesn't call, the school makes a call to the parent.

There were several attempted kidnappings at the school bus stops here and that is why the policy ws put in place. I agree with the policy.

[OldFriend]

Your argument reminds me of the objection to BABY SAFE drop off points for unwanted newborns.

The alternative is dead babies, in both cases.

[Cheburashka]

I agree with the policy too. But no legal liability.

[Cheburashka]

I have no objection to BABY SAFE drop off points.

[Cheburashka]

NY has PETA lunatics influencing the writing of law.

The death of any human should be investigated.

But there is such a thing as an accident, where no one is actually at fault.

[Cheburashka]

Forgetting is not a crime. It is human error.

[myrabach]

If a horrible death and loss of one's child is not enough to slow these incidents... why on earth would a year in jail make people more responsible?

I'm agreeing with the people who are saying that putting car seats in the back seat, turned around, needs to be addressed. And I agree that a car seat in the front would go even further to stem the flow.

[Trust but Verify]

Precisely. Some people would like to make that a crime. We have all gotten wrapped up in our thoughts and done dangerous things 99.9% there is no harm. But the .1% when harm is done, it's usually great harm, as in this case. We have all driven in a preoccupied state and reached our destination almost by divine providence. I'm not casting stones at this poor mother.

[OldFriend]

There were many here who did object to safe drop off places for unwanted newborns.

In a perfect world parents would be responsible, until then we as a society must do all we can to protect life.

[RushCrush]

Sorry but I don't think the daycare should be babysitting parents by calling them to make sure they haven't killed their kids every day.
Kids shouldn't be in daycare anyway. They should be home with one of their parents instead of these disgusting germ mills.

[OldFriend]

Speaking of a perfect world, eh?

[RushCrush]

Just because it doesn't happen, doesn't mean we can't hope for a perfect world!

[Cheburashka]

I understand your point. Except for "...must do all we can to protect life."

There are too many people who would take the "all" in your statement to ridiculous extremes.

I realize you are not one of them (you post at Free Republic).

There is a difference between trying to protect life and trying to make the world perfect by passing enough laws. And by filing enough lawsuits and collecting enough legal fees from lawsuit settlements.

[pax_et_bonum]

My heart goes out to this mother.

She will never recover from this.

I can't blame her: how many of us have never had one of those heart-stopping moments of realization that we'd forgotten to do something important and that it was too late to rememdy it?

I'm far from perfect and am just thankful that none of my "OMG, I forgot...!" moments cost the life of one of my children.

[OldFriend]

I didn't mean to suggest that any of these measures should be made into law. Not at all, but today's families are stressed to the breaking point. The general unease about terror and the media's endless doom and gloom carping adds to the stress level.

If the school makes a policy decision and the parents understand the reason for that policy I see no harm in that.

If a parent object, they can opt out in writing.

[mewzilla]

Prosecute some of these parents to the fullest extent of the law and somehow I think other parents' memories will improve.