Child left in car in 35 degree heat

Infallible?

leaving your toddler in an hot car now counts as fallible and ok?
OK.

Christ almighty.

I live abroad in a hot country and hot car deaths happen annually. The people saying ‘it would never happen to me’ aren’t helpful. It’s more helpful to think how can I stop this ever happening to me. What is helpful is this:

-Nearly always happens when the non default parent/change of routine parent or caregiver has them eg Dad has them as Mum has a drs appt or is too unwell. Have a convo if there is any change of routine. It’s happened where Grandparents or family have forgotten they are babysitting that day and parked up and gone inside too.

-Children often fall asleep in the back of the car, hence the lack of a reminder. Check in with people that are driving or have your kids.

-Many times the parents drive on autopilot and as the child isn’t typically with them as it’s not routine and they are sleeping, they drive to the office or shop and get out as they typically would vs going to nursery or remembering to bring child in the shop as they forget they have them

I do the daily school runs and so if my husband ever does it I always call him and make sure my kids arrived ok. If someone had called this Dad (and no nobody should have had to but it reads like Dad drove to work on autopilot) then they’d have realised much sooner. I find myself constantly checking my backseats as I drive even when on my own as I’m in the habit of checking as I drive, my husband says he does the same thing now, make checking your backseat part of a routine. Add a bag to the backseat you need so you have to open the back doors.

Thoughts may have changed (or regulations). We bought an ionic 6 in California a few months ago that alerts us if there is weight on the back seat and we switch the engine off.

It’s linked more than once on the first page of the thread.

I think this thread is being warped by a couple of posters who think they are infallible, and are repeatedly expressing their incredulity, which is outnumbering the vast majority thinking thank fuck I never did this- because it could happen to anyone.

Which Washington Post article? link?

Though, I don’t need to read articles (excuses to make educated people feel better). So frankly your “link” is meaningless. Smart people assuaging their consciences.

You don’t, ever, leave your young children strapped into their seat in the car on an hot day. End of. There is no “reason”.

Most reasonably educated people (and quite a lot of stupid people) realise that you don’t do that to a dog.

If you don’t you’re negligent, plain and simple. There is no counter argument.

The number of posts suggesting that this is an easy to make mistake is disturbing. It isn’t if you give the most basic iota of care for your children,

Agree with you, OP. That this happened is horrific.

If it had woken the child - he might have been away before the cry alerted him.

I am not sure you can say you would never forget your dog in the back of your car though? Just that, to date, you have not. Neither have I. Thank god.

Forgetting is an absence of mind - not an active choice to forget or not give a shit. Neither you nor @MrsSkylerWhite havs provided an alternative suggestion to what the dad was doing then? Just “ not buying” that is possible to accidentally lock a child in a car? The recorded reactions of the parents who have done this are utterly harrowing

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14361701/amp/baby-dies-hot-car-sydney.html

There has been an upsurge of cases since toddlers started sitting in the reverse position because a parent can't actually see them.

I feel nothing but absolute sympathy for the parents who are going through this. I know an amazing Mum who left her newborn at the dentist (it was her 4th) and didn't even realize until she'd driven 5 minutes away and her 4 yo said, "Mummy, are we leaving XX at the dentist forever?!"

Shit happens and MOST of the time, nothing bad happens but sadly, occasionally it does.

It appears so - people believing they are God and infallible

mental stuff indeed - must be on the blue meth.

It’s 25-30 times a year in the USA alone - not once or twice every couple of years. The numbers increased sharply after countries adopted car seats in the rear policies and rear facing policies.

Read the Washington post article. It’s not excuses it’s reality. Very very rarely. And clearly it doesn’t happen to 99.9% of us no matter what our busyness.

Im not sure what you don’t understand? People making comments about dogs are missing the point. Everyone KNOWS you don’t leave babies OR dogs in hot cars.

But once every couple of years, less thankfully it happens to some poor individual with a baby in summer, in very hot temperatures with catastrophic results. I’m sure it happens with dogs too but we don’t hear about it.

Negligence isn’t a tragic accident. Up your game.

Well let's hope nothing tragic ever happens to you or a loved one due to a tragic accident. Read the article linked to multiple times and try and engage your brain just a little.

How the actual fuck is anyone excusing this negligence?

Jesus Christ.

B

@MrsSkylerWhite have you read the Washington post article linked earlier ?

BS.

Negligence in the extreme.

What? You can’t be fucking serious?’

Sorry. No! Two children, husband worked away all week for years, effectively a single parent Monday to Friday, Hosted 2 or 3 overseas sixth form students every year for several years.

No-one forgets they have a child strapped into their car, especially on an hot day,

Anyone making excuses for such behaviour ought to be bloody ashamed of themselves. I wouldn’t have left our dog in a hot car for 10 minutes.

Jesus, this site is bloody mental sometimes.

Those that think otherwise - do you think that there are psychopathic parents out there either a) deliberately boiling their babies to death in baking hot cars or b) just negligently can’t be arsed to look in the back to check if the child is there one way or the other or c) think it’s fine to keep a child in the backseat of a car for 7 hours while they are at work?

Which is it?

I’ve read a lot of these cases in the past and most are horrible, tragic accidents. A parent taking a child they don’t usually take who falls asleep in the back. A tired parent on autopilot. 90% of these cases are loved and cared for children and it is one of the most desperate, sad situations I can imagine as a parent.

Unbelievable, what happened!

So what do you think is going through people’s minds then? That they are think “yeah I’ll leave my baby in the car for a few hours, it’s a bit toasty but no doubt they will be fine”.

And that is more plausible to you than the idea that people might just have forgotten they had a child in the car?

I know the protective instinct that we have for our children means that it IS much more hard-wired not to forget about them in the way we might forget our phone or house-keys. But that instinct unfortunately isnt 100% infallible.

Sorry, what?

Hoping the replies above are sarcasm?!

Exactly!! They don’t normally take the child to nursery say - go onto autopilot in the car. Arrive at work and don’t realise the child is there. In a rush, mind on the day ahead.

It’s obviously hugely rare but CLEAR they haven’t done it on purpose. Just the most horrifying utterly awful thing from which they and their partner would never recover from. The poor baby & poor poor family. Like others I read the Washington post article and it stuck with me. There but for the grave of God.

Could I respectfully suggest that you read the Washington Post article linked and referenced by several people on your thread? You would gain some valuable insights into this utterly tragic and well-documented modern-day phenomenon.