Posted on 09/04/2002 6:04:39 AM PDT by Between the Lines
CONOVER - A 10-week-old baby died in a car that caught fire in a school parking lot Tuesday while the baby's mother was inside the building, picking up another child from an after-school program.
Authorities believe the mother drove into the lot outside Lyle Creek Elementary School in Conover, just east of Hickory, about 3:35 p.m. The mother had two of her children with her: a 3-year-old boy and the infant, in a car seat behind the driver, said Conover police Capt. Steve Brewer.
She left both children in the car while she went inside to fetch her third child, a kindergartner, Brewer said. A few minutes later, the 3-year-old ran into the school building, found his mother and told her the car was on fire, he said. A witness, Tracy Caldwell, said he heard a "faint little boom," turned around and saw fire and smoke coming from the car.
The mother tried to open the car door, but it was too hot; she sustained minor burns on her hands and was taken to nearby Catawba Valley Medical Center, Brewer said. The 3-year-old was unharmed.
Conover police and the N.C. State Bureau of Investigation were trying late Tuesday to determine the origin and cause of the fire, Brewer said. Investigators didn't know whether the car was left running in the lot or where the fire started. No charges have been filed.
The identities of the mother and her children were not released Tuesday night. The infant's gender also was not released.
By evening, SBI agents were closely inspecting the car, a purple Mitsubishi Eclipse parked about 100 feet from a side entrance.
"You see a whole lot of things in this profession," Brewer said, "but you'll never get used to something like this."
Caldwell was one of four N.C. Department of Transportation road workers preparing to go home after a day of planting grass near the school parking lot entrance on C&B Farm Road. Caldwell, also the chief of the Bandys Volunteer Fire Department in southern Catawba County, was walking to his truck when he heard the faint boom, a sound he said he'd heard before in car fires.
"I turned and looked and saw the fire and smoke," he said. "I had my fire walkie (radio) with me, and I called in to communications and said we had a vehicle fire at Lyle Creek Elementary."
He and the other three workers jumped into their trucks and drove to the car, which was quickly engulfed in flames, he said. The workers had fire extinguishers with them, and teachers and other school personnel brought others from inside. "At one point," Caldwell said, "we had fire extinguishers everywhere."
Caldwell said he and the other workers didn't know a child was in the car as they approached it, and he declined to say when they found out.
They got the fire down to a smolder within a few minutes; Caldwell wouldn't say how long it took the workers to get it under control, but Brewer said the fire probably lasted between seven and 10 minutes.
The after-school program, Pryme Time, is run by the YMCA of Catawba Valley. Lyle Creek, which opened last fall, is the only school that has the program.
CEO Gary Hogue said Tuesday that he planned to meet today with his board members to discuss how they might help the family.
"It's hard for us to put ourselves in that family's shoes right now, but we're going to do what we can to help them," Hogue said. "Because we feel we've had a loss, too."
Absolutely! How many years in prison do you think would be appropriate?
It's a shame you weren't there to prove it.
I was wondering where are all the people who were saying last week that it was fine to leave an infant in a car alone have gone.
She lost a child. She'll carry that burden for ever. In a sense she already has a life sentence. You were the one who brought up prison. Since you did, if the investigation bears any evidence of blame on the part of the mother, then yes I do believe she should be prosecuted.
• Was the car running?
• Did the 3-year-old have access to lighter/matches?
A non-running automobile is not a candidate for spontaneous combustion.
It was about 90 degrees in Conover yesterday. Too hot to leave a child in a car without airconditioning.
Most likely she will be prosecuted for reckless child endangerment (They love that one in NC) in which she will probably receive 3 months and if she has no priors it will either be suspended or probated.
If you mean how many years that I think she should get, it would be none. What lesson could prison teach her that she has not already learned? I think that she will never leave an infant unattended in a car again, or if I am wrong she will just never buy a Mitsubishi again.
Laws that put "bad parents" in prison only makes a home that once had a less than perfect parent to a home with no parent. Hardly a good trade off. The best solution is to get stories like this one heard by parents so that maybe they will think twice before leaving their infant unattended.
I agree. I was just replying as to why the engine may have been left on.
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