Posted on 07/22/2005 3:08:56 PM PDT by ChildOfThe60s
Infant Girl Left In Hot Car Dies
A baby was found dead inside a car Thursday after her father went to pick her up at her daycare and workers there told him she had never arrived, authorities said.
Gabriel Saavedra rushed out to his car at Storybook Nursery School and found his tiny daughter, Kayli, still strapped in her infant seat from that morning, police said.
Emergency workers said the girl, who would have been 5 months old on Saturday, was declared dead on the scene.
Welcome to FR...and yes....I don't know how one can forget their child in the car unless they are very very stoned.
I wonder what the relative risks are. Anecdotally, it seems many more babies are dying in the back seat of hot cars than have ever been killed by an airbag in the front seat.
It's like the safety Nazis demanding babies on airplanes be strapped into safety seats instead of carried on Mom's lap. The number of babies that could ever be saved by such a policy is dwarfed by the number who will now die in car wrecks because their parents can't afford to pay for a separate airline seat.
-ccm
I will place my child primary care giving skills against that of any woman.
Well, OK. I can't breast feed.
But as for everything else, bring it on, lady!!!
It never happened to us, Jocko, but it is the kind of thing my absent-minded dad could easily have done. He really was a good dad, but he was always trying to figure out some problem in his head, and it usually didn't involve us kids.
I remember one time he took me on a trip with him and a friend of his. They were going to buy prize angus livestock. Everytime he would stop to get gas, I would pester him for a coke, which he would just get me, while talking bulls and heifers with his friend. Inevitably, I would be squirming in the seat to "go", and he would stop to let me "go".
Like a typical 7 yr old, I would ask for another coke, and we would repeat this endlessly. Finally, the older and wiser friend of my dad asked him if he had ever considered that buying me endless bottles of coca-cola had anything to do with my 50 mile bladder limit. My dad was dumbstruck. It never occured to him.
But, he never left me in the car, though. I wanted that next coca-cola.
I never walk through a parking lot at the market or mall without checking cars as I pass by
Good for you. My sister-in-law is a pediatric nurse and she has seen it all. One day we were shopping and she noticed a child left in a car. She marched into the store that the car was parked in front of and tracked down the parent (a father) and kindly but firmly told him that he should not leave his child in a car unattended.
My 3-year-old daughter visited her newborn baby brother in the nursery, and allowed as how he was nice enough and all, but couldn't we take that other litle fellow over there instead?
--ccm
Sad but sorry. I won't blame the daycare because the "father" screwed up. Daycare can never be "the parent" nor should it be. Very too sad for all involved, but the blame rests on one sad person's shoulders.
When I was working at the pharmacy developing photos last fall (I got a new and better job recently), there was a case where the local fireman and policemen were looking for a 7 year old boy who was lost. They came into our store 3 or 4 times and we all went around to look for him in case he came in. Well it turned out the father forget to pick him up from some classes (I don't know if it was for sports, I talked to the firemen after I left work) and must have thought he had him in the car. I can see if he forgot his Palm Pilot or something but his kid, I'm just scratching my head.
Uh, 'murdered' as in 'read the riot act'. Sheesh, can't you figure out hyperbole?
The hubris and sanctimony on this thread are not surprising, lately it is all over FR.
Maybe it's the 'silent majority' no longer being silent.
"This happened to a guy at my work."
I forgot to pick up one of my daughters from pre-school ONCE in 3 years. Fifteen years later I still hear about it.
READ MY FRIGGIN' POSTS!!!!
******* #75 Putting an infant in daycare is abusive.
I agree about the daycare...and it is TOTALLY the father's fault...but I think the daycare should have called and asked where the baby was. It's only common sense and could have helped prevent the tragedy.
******* #81 I'm not sure the daycare people have the responsibility of tracking down kids in the custody of their parents.
geez, people!!! I'm not saying it's the daycare's RESPONSIBILITY...I'm saying a phonemail message might have jogged someone's memory!!
******* #91 Perhaps the daycare did call.
Oh, for pete's sake!!! I give up!!! I was proposing a common sense safety check.
And no...they didn't call.
That's one phonecall she will never forget.
And I sincerely hope HE has a vivid memory of the call he got from her as the aftermath!
What ever happened to those yellow BABY ON BOARD signs that were so ubiquitous 20 years ago?
Lest any of you think I am making light of this tragic death, please know I am not. If anything, I am trying to understand it. I am an old mom, who stayed home, and probably over-supervised, if anything.
But, there are so many memories of my forgetful parents. I am the oldest of seven, and now in my 60s. I am very glad my parents didn't have the pressure and distractions that today's young parents are trying to cope with...
How many of you moms have left your purse on the top of the car, and driven off without it? True, it isn't a baby in a carseat, but those of us in the older generation, and our parents, didn't have to haul the babies everywhere with us the way young parents do today.
I used to be able to find reliable teenagers to baby-sit all four of mine, and they were good responsible kids, with SAHM moms on call in an emergency. Try to find one today! My son and his wife dare not trust anyone to care for their two lil boys, and are 18 hours away from us. They never get a break from parenting.
Inexperienced young parents have no clue how fast a baby can slip down in a high chair and choke him/herself to death on the strap between his legs... This is a consequence of our overly mobile society, the lack of extended family with experienced older women to teach and pass along the tips on babies and toddlers... We need to form groups to help isolated struggling young parents, and not just condemn them.
We were all young parents once ourselves, and many of us lost children to errors common to the dangers of our times. Over-heated cars just didn't happen to be one of them.
LOL, your dad had never stopped to think the soda pop and the bathroom stops were somehow connected. That IS absent-minded.
...
It's been a long time now, but if memory serves correctly, my sister and her hubby had two cars but only one carseat, so it got carried into the house in the evenings if it was to be used in other car following morning. So B.I.L. put the kid in there while in the house, getting ready to leave, and had lots going on right then, hauled her outside, had other stuff to do, probably had to get their dogs situated somehow in the house, too ... ...
Odd situation anyway.
They had already lived in that house many years and were friends w/ the elderly neighbors except for being annoyed by neighbors' yappy little mini-dog. BUT, so glad those folks were home AND bothered to look out the window AND took good care of her till my sister got there.
I seem to recall the wife was on the phone when she glanced out the window and spotted my niece.
Hate to think how it might have turned out.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.