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Parents Had Planned to Drive Daughter to Day Care Prior to Her Death from Heat Exhaustion
Memphis, TN, Commercial Appeal ^ | 07-01-03 | Edmondson, Aimee

Posted on 07/01/2003 7:53:13 AM PDT by Theodore R.

Parents were set to drive Amber to day care They had just bought a used car

By Aimee Edmondson edmondson@gomemphis.com July 1, 2003

Amber Cox-Cody's parents fretted about putting her on a day care van every day.

They had heard about past tragedies, of children dying in hot vans, of van wrecks where children were killed.

They had just bought a used Toyota Tercel, and Amber's father, Matthew Cody, said they were planning to start driving Sarina, 4, and Amber, 2, to day care themselves.

"We were always uncomfortable with it because of the things that happened in the past," Cody said. "But you don't expect it to hit home."

Amber died Wednesday, strapped in her car seat, forgotten for eight hours. She never made it inside Children's Rainbow Learning Center on Macon Road, al though the center's transportation log said she did.

Her funeral is scheduled for noon today at True Holiness Lighthouse Church, 654 Chelsea.

Amber had attended Children's Rainbow Learning Center for four months.

The day care center is just four blocks from the family's Macon Road apartment, but they didn't walk the kids there.

It's a long four blocks, a tough 10-minute walk with two young children.

"It's really hard to walk it with a 2-year-old and a 4-year-old, then catch the bus to keep a job," said Cody, a 1998 Millington High graduate.

Since high school, the 22-year-old has worked as a telemarketer and laborer, moving from one odd job to another. When things got tough, he even did temp work, setting up stages and booths for Memphis in May.

Cody said he had planned last weekend to drive to Cumberland College in Williamsburg, Ky., to try out for a baseball scholarship.

He said he wanted to be a high school teacher and is determined to get off food stamps for good.

"I knew I had to better my situation for my family," Cody said. "I had to."

Amber's mother, Ilia Cox-Cody, 23, is a hostess at the Cracker Barrel on Shelby Oaks Drive.

Cody said the administrator of Children's Rainbow Learning Center, Ivory Bryant, called him to apologize after Amber's death.

"She told me how sorry she was," Cody said. "It was a good day care, but some people are irresponsible.

"It's a human mistake. It shouldn't have happened, but it did."

Cody said he's been amazed at the community's outpouring of support. The family has gotten so many calls to help with the funeral and related expenses that Monday, he and his wife set up the Amber Cox-Cody Fund at First South Credit Union.

Seven children have died in Memphis day care vans in four separate incidents since 1999.

Cody said he and his family have been brainstorming ways to help keep this from happening again.

"We have a thousand ideas running through our heads right now," Cody said.

- Aimee Edmondson:

529-2773


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: ambercoxcody; daycare; heatexhaustion; memphis

1 posted on 07/01/2003 7:53:13 AM PDT by Theodore R.
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To: Theodore R.
Two things I just don't get:

(1) The unbelievable equanimity with which certain people seem to accept the untimely, criminal deaths of their loved ones,

(2) How any parent could bear to go eight hours without contact. My wife stays home with our daughter, but I call every few hours just to hear her little voice.

2 posted on 07/01/2003 8:00:02 AM PDT by wideawake (God bless our brave soldiers and their Commander in Chief)
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To: Theodore R.
"She told me how sorry she was," Cody said. "It was a good day care, but some people are irresponsible. "It's a human mistake. It shouldn't have happened, but it did."

A human mistake, Manslaughter is a human mistake. Is this justified homicide.

3 posted on 07/01/2003 8:00:20 AM PDT by TonyWojo
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To: Theodore R.
Sooo… I guess the father left her in the car? You’d think the author might include that, but learning about his try out for a baseball scholarship is probably more important than the details of how this tragedy happened.

Owl_Eagle

”Guns Before Butter.”

4 posted on 07/01/2003 8:01:13 AM PDT by End Times Sentinel ("It is unlikely there'll be a reduction in the wages of sin.")
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To: wideawake
The feeling of "inevitability" that the young couple seems to have about the loss of their 2-year-old dovetails with the liberal world view that things happen beyond our own control, and we therefore need government to protect us.
5 posted on 07/01/2003 8:02:39 AM PDT by Theodore R.
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To: Theodore R.
How dreadful for this family. How can anyone entrusted with precious children be so careless as to lost track of little ones? Tragic and preventable. Poor child.

As a parent, I don't understand how one can be concerned enough to buy a car on such a limited income, and not be concerned enough to deal with a 4 block walk. We've all made bad decisions in our lives. Fortunately for most of us, we are usually spared such horrible consequences.

6 posted on 07/01/2003 8:02:51 AM PDT by Think free or die
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To: Owl_Eagle
no,it sounds like the child was left in the daycare van all day.
7 posted on 07/01/2003 8:02:59 AM PDT by glock rocks (Remember -- only you can prevent fundraisers ... become a monthly donor.)
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To: Owl_Eagle
My reading of this is that the parents did not take her that morning - she was on the day care centers bus.

Amber died Wednesday, strapped in her car seat, forgotten for eight hours. She never made it inside Children's Rainbow Learning Center on Macon Road, al though the center's transportation log said she did.

8 posted on 07/01/2003 8:05:12 AM PDT by Gabz (anti-smokers = personification of everything wrong in this country)
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To: Gabz
from WREG 3 webpage...

Memphis, TN - One by one Memphis Police Officers bring out children from the Children's Rainbow Learning Center in Northeast Memphis. Scared parents are rushing to the daycare after they hear two-year-old Amber Cox-Cody suffocated to death after being left in a van for eight hours in ninety degree temperatures.

"When I asked what was wrong they said a child was left in the van. And that took the life out of me," says Rosalind Blakemore who has a niece and a nephew in the daycare.

Police say the little girl was left in the van at 7:30 in the morning. Amber was found still strapped to a safety seat when all the other kids we're getting ready to leave at 3:30 in the afternoon.

"They tried to perform CPR on the child but the child had passed away," says Major Glen Williams of the Memphis Police Department.

Parents were waiting outside trying to figure out WHY AND HOW this happened. Including Earl Britton. Britton's wife is the teacher of the two year old girl.

"She's doing all right, she was taking it hard because the baby was in her classroom ," says Britton. "All I can do is calm her down and try to keep her from being stressed out."

Which begs the question: Why didn't anyone in this daycare notice the little girl was in the van all day? We tried to get answers by knocking on the door of the daycare and trying to speak to employees when they left for the day. But all refused to comment.

A Department of Human Services investigator showed up at the daycare to interview the director, the driver and the monitor of the learning center.

"They're very upset," says Janice Roach of DHS. "It's a very tragic situation."

For now parents of children who attend Children's Rainbow Learning Center want answers - before they bring their kids back.

"I have to re-evaluate it," says Tamika Randy who has a daughter in the daycare. "I'm not going to say it's bad or anything now because I like the people and they're very personable."

We asked Rosalind Blakemore if she would bring her niece and nephew back to Children's Rainbow Learning Center. She shook her head and said: "Nope, not if I can help it. They probably won't be," says Blakemore.

A DHS spokesperson says they have asked the daycare to voluntarily shutdown. If they don't they'll order them to do so.

9 posted on 07/01/2003 8:06:53 AM PDT by glock rocks (Remember -- only you can prevent fundraisers ... become a monthly donor.)
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To: Owl_Eagle
The DayCare Van folks left the child in the van. Please re-read the article.
10 posted on 07/01/2003 8:08:22 AM PDT by homeschool mama
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To: wideawake
Two things I just don't get:

(1) The unbelievable equanimity with which certain people seem to accept the untimely, criminal deaths of their loved ones,

It's hard to convey emotion through print media. I bet she didn't just shrug this off.

11 posted on 07/01/2003 8:15:22 AM PDT by ShadowAce (Linux -- The Ultimate Windows Service Pack)
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To: wideawake
How any parent could bear to go eight hours without contact.

Yeah. Our little one is just getting old enough to visit relatives, and they hate us because we keep calling to talk to her and check up on her. I occasionally look at my daughter's picture and leave work in the middle of the day to go play with her.

My wife and I started arranging our lives long before she was even pregnant so that strangers would not raise our kids. We made sacrifices, painful and expensive ones, for children that we didn't even have at the time.

12 posted on 07/01/2003 8:21:22 AM PDT by hopespringseternal
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To: hopespringseternal
My wife and I started arranging our lives long before she was even pregnant so that strangers would not raise our kids. We made sacrifices, painful and expensive ones, for children that we didn't even have at the time.


These are the kind of parents the USA NEEDS!
13 posted on 07/01/2003 8:45:44 AM PDT by Roughneck (Get the U.N. out of the U.S, and get the U.S. out of the U.N.)
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To: Theodore R.
The guy is 5 years out of high school and can't get a decent job so mom could properly raise their offspring?

I don't agree with government control of anything except the military, but if a license is needed to cut hair, maybe a person (couple, preferably) should have to pass an idiot test before squeezing out the pups while on the gov't dole.
14 posted on 07/01/2003 8:47:02 AM PDT by ctlpdad (Tag line (optional, printed after your name on post):)
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To: hopespringseternal
Yup. My wife gave up a partnership track position at a large Manhattan law firm to stay home with our daughter (and hopefully other children in future!) - that greatly reduced our income as you can imagine, but we wouldn't have it any other way.

I meant my original post in this sense: I don't call to check on my daughter out of a sense of duty, like "in order to be a good father I feel that I must call twice on workdays and three times if I'm staying late" - it's not some conscious act of being responsible. It's the simple fact that I very selfishly can't bear to go so long without hearing her voice or seeing her.

15 posted on 07/01/2003 8:51:28 AM PDT by wideawake (God bless our brave soldiers and their Commander in Chief)
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To: Theodore R.
Another thing I don't understand about this is how you can miss a child in a carseat? It does'nt take much intelligence to just look. Maybe they might have a problem counting I'm sure they were educated in public schools.
16 posted on 07/01/2003 11:54:50 AM PDT by LooneyTick (you have to be tough if your going to be stupid)
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