Posted on 08/23/2007 6:08:28 PM PDT by TornadoAlley3
Each Parent Thought The Other Was Taking Daughter To Child Care
ST. LOUIS, MO (KTVI-myFOXstl.com) --
A 7 month old baby girl died after police say she was left in a locked car for 4 hours in the sweltering summer heat.
(Excerpt) Read more at myfoxstl.com ...
” I hope I haven’t just given away a $1Billion idea.”
Seriously, you should jump on that and see if anyone has patented it.
With the judgers, it's the same thing. At least if someone is at fault, they don't have to face the reality that you can be a good person, minding your own business, and blammo, without warning, something can happen(a drunk driver? a bolt of lightening? cancer?) and turn your whole life to ruin. Who wants to deal with that? So they say "that guy was an idiot, he had it coming" and move on.
Humans are strange. We all need help.
do you think that anyone consciously thinks, boy don’t let me be in charge of the baby, I’m too stupid not to kill it.
What a legacy to carry for the rest of thier lives...
I bet some people are wondering just that about your parents.
Good points. I’m alarmed at the commentary here as if the parents were both abortionists. Stories like this simply sadden me for ALL parties involved.
I've already stolen the idea heh heh
No flame, just a better suggestion of putting the baby bag in the front seat to remind the driver about the kid. Personally my three kids rode in the front seat while I was driving, partly because I always wanted them to be within reach in case of choking or some such. Once I put my toddler in the back seat and, as I was tooling along the five-land interstate in an urban area, I looked in the back mirror and saw her twirling around the seatbelt. She had dismantled the belt itself from the buckle and so the buckle was still in place but the belt was completely out of the buckle mechanism. (This was the late 80s.) She is still a dismantler. Those sort of things made me want to keep her within reach. Of course, our cars didn’t have airbags and I do understand the problem now. That’s why that suggestion is so good.
Unlike that police dog, mine is poorly trained. As soon as I unclick my seatbelt she leaps over the console from the back seat into the area between me and the brake/accelerator. Forget her in the SUV? No way.
Another post-birth abortion.
That’s a good idea....I was actually discussing this problem with my boss the other day, and suggested that cars should be equipped with auto-ventilation sensors...if it gets to warm, fans turn on, or something to that effect. Since it’s hot, there’s obviously some sunlight around, so maybe a small solar cell to keep the battery from being drained. Just my two cents.
Anyways, it should be trivial for such senseless deaths to be avoided if the auto companies put a few engineers onto the project.
For every infant who cooks forgotten in the back seat, a dozen survive crashes that they probably would not have otherwise and escape serious injury.
Rejecting car seats in the back because a few children are forgotten is like refusing to wear a seatbelt because you’re planning to be thrown clear in case the car goes down a cliff.
I NEVER forgot my kids. Ever.
When you're a parent, it's your first priority. Being so obsessed with yourself that you think everyone around you is taking care of the things you couldn't bother to do yourself is incredibly selfish.
I have read this entire thread and just had to take the time to let all of you know that you, each and every one of you, are what I call, “good folks”. I don’t think I need to explain further because “good folks” just “get it”.
God bless and comfort this family, and those who are keeping them in their prayers.
This story is so tragic. Reading some of the above posts brought a favorite poem to mind. I think of it often, especially when I feel ‘quick to judge’ others, and wanted to share it with you all:
***
If I Had Known
If I had known what trouble you were bearing;
What griefs were in the silence of your face;
I would have been more gentle, and more caring,
And tried to give you gladness for a space.
I would have brought more warmth into the place,
If I had known.
If I had known what thoughts despairing drew you;
(Why do we never try to understand?)
I would have lent a little friendship to you,
and slipped my hand within your hand,
And made your stay more pleasant in the land,
If I had known.
—Mary Carolyn Davies
***
Prayers for this devastated family - the little one is in the arms of Jesus.
If any of us were unfortunate enough to make this horrible a mistake, would we be able to face the full awful reality of it, or would shock, denial and horror cloud our memory of events? Memory is already somewhat plastic even before the enormous pressure of guilt comes into play.
Still, there have been enough of these cases in the press that those of us who are absentminded should know be now that we need to implement systems and procedures in our lives to make sure we don’t make such mistakes.
This sort of case is different from ones in which the caregiver leaves the kids in the car knowing they are there, and then goes into the beauty parlor for a several hour hair braiding session. I remember just such a case maybe a couple of years ago. Yes, I know the results to the poor child can be exactly the same, but the motivation behind the act is very different. <p.I was an absent-minded parent myself when my kids were young. I forgot to pick them up a couple of times. I am absent-minded period. This sort of thing could have happened to me. It would have killed me.
The mother is a pediatrician. If she is so absent minded as to forget her child in a car, or not to double check that the child was dropped off at day care, I wouldn’t allow her to prescribe an aspirin for my child.
Apparently, some times these incidents are charged as crimes and sometimes not. There was a case here in L. A. a couple of years ago in which a university professor (dad) left the baby in the hot car and it died. No charges. But in another case, a mom left the kids in the car in the driveway, went inside and got plastered and passed out, and the kids died. She was charged with some sort of homicide.
Getting drunk and forgetting your child or getting involved in your work and forgetting about your child, either way, you negligently forgot the child and put your own needs above the needs of the child.
I really don’t get people who do this. My children are always foremost in my mind over anything else I’ve got going on during the day.
So, according to that my guess is that 75 children per year can be saved by shifting them to the back seat of cars vs. an additional hyperthermia instance of 25 per year, giving us 50 kids saved per year. I am not a statistician though.
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