Children dying in cars due to heat

[Soubriquet]

I know people say accidents happen, but I genuinely can’t understand how people leave their kids in the car and forget about them.

I mean, even when I was so exhausted I forgot my own name, I still had my children in my forefront of my mind.

It’s a heartbreakingly sad and I do feel sorry for the parents when they discover they left their kids in the car but I still don’t understand how.

You don't need your child to get past the two-factor authentication challenge issued by your employer's email provider. You do need your phone for that.

More generally, people leave their kids in cars under circumstances when they shouldn't have their child with them because the child should be in daycare. So they don't notice their child missing. They notice their wallet missing when they go to the vending machine or they notice their phone missing when they go to doomscroll the news.

If it's hot enough to kill a dog, it's hot enough to kill a child.

Read the bloody article. It explains how and why it happens.

her mum realised because she was expecting to be at home with the child. If you have driven to work and forgotten to drop off the baby in the way, you won’t be at work expecting it to be there, so you won’t be reminded in the same way.

Thanks. I tried to read it on the other link but it was paywalled

It's not a new thing. My grandmother would have been over 100 were she still alive, and she left my dad outside a shop in the pram when he was a baby.Went home without him.

No danger from overheating in those days and was probably safer then as she lived in a small village.

Really sad to read of these cases when they happen.

I live in Arizona. The heat here is undesirable. I'm not sure what the European conversion is but 112 to 115 is typical for July and August. Inside a car is even hotter.

I saw a woman on Oprah who this happened to. I’ll be honest I’m sceptical- my 3yr old doesn’t stop talking, I couldn’t not know she was in the car.

Please invent this it's genius

what...?
people DON'T always remember their phones/wallets/keys, do they? People forgot those things all the time???

there's more than a hint of victim blaming in your posts, OP. I don't know what you're trying to suggest, that those people clearly didn't love their kids as much as you love yours, and therefore they somehow deserve for this to happen, because they make one mistake which I'm sure they will regret for the rest of their lives? I'm sure I read about at least one mother killing herself afterwards out of guilt.

I'm sure at SOME stage in your life you've done something stupid that a bystander would think 'how on EARTH could they have done that?'

people make mistakes....as people have said it could just be a change of routine but could also be affected by bereavement, illness, stress, extreme exhaustion...who knows? The only thing we do know is that I'm sure all of them never thought it was something they would ever do themselves before it happened to them!

If you’re in any doubt that you might do this, I suggest finding something written by a parent who has done this. They’re just ordinary parents who love and care for their children, who made a terrible accidental mistake, usually due to a change in routine. The posts saying how this is ”unbelievable” come across as rather sanctimonious.

I once forgot to collect my daughter from nursery. Instead of finishing work for the day and going immediately to collect her, I had a meeting. Then I went home and started having a cup of tea with my sister who had been looking after my other two children after school. She asked where DD was and I leapt up to go and collect her. DD was fine and nursery hadn’t even noticed I was (about an hour) late to collect her. This story is similar to the accounts of parents who did something out of the ordinary on their way to work, forgot their child was in the car with them, and went into their work for 8 hours. It could happen to anyone. 😢

I left my own 4 ish week old baby at the checkout in Asda.
I’ve frequently driven to the wrong place on autopilot. I can absolutely see how it could be done

It's odd that both parents didn't realise she wasn't in the house for 3 hours

This child died 5 years ago so if that’s the latest one then at least it’s not very common at all.

If you have a modern car which won't lock when a key is inside it, consider putting the car key next to the baby. That way it's something you'll always have with you every time you get in the car and you can't lock the car without removing it.

Surely, the key has to be in the ignition for the car to operate?

My boss once turned up for work an hour late. He'd driven all the way in once, went to get his briefcase out of the back seat and realised that his son (whom he was supposed to be dropping at nursery, as his wife was ill) was still there. He had to drive 3/4 of the way back to get him to nursery. And then admit why he was late...

It is so, so easily done. I remember a friend once telling us about how she'd lost her car keys. 'Guess where I found them?' she said. 'In the fridge,' I replied. She was aghast. 'How did you KNOW?' I pretended I was psychic, I didn't tell her that I'd done exactly the same thing myself the week before.

Not in lots of cars

Someone I know went to the supermarket, came out, saw his bus and jumped on. Only when he got home he remembered that he had taken the car and his kids to supermarket too (everyone was fine).

I read the article posted above some years ago and it still haunts me.

Not in very modern cars. Just needs to be somewhere in the car.

I read that article years ago (I think it was in the Washington Post) whilst pregnant with my first child. I have never forgotten it, or how I felt after reading it.

If you feel you need to understand more about why and how it happens, and the utterly devastating after-effects, it's extremely informative, careful reporting, but it's also heart-rending.

I just admitted to having a Jurassic era car, didn't I?

I would never ever judge.

When I was a sleep deprived parent with a baby and a toddler, I came back from a food shop with both kids. Toddler (she was about 18months) at the time was asleep in the car, baby was awake. Took the baby in and thought, I'll let toddler finish her nap. I put the car down the side of the house, closed the gate so that no one would see her in the car and went inside. Baby fell asleep two mins after going in the house and I made a cup of coffee. 20 mins later I went OH SHIT and raced outside. My toddler was perfectly ok, still asleep BUT my god, she was bloody hot and honestly I hate to think what could have happened if I had fallen alseep.

This was in the UK on a fairly warm day but not Amercian temperatures.

I had genuinely forgotten she was outside. Judge away.

These people have lost their children.

I never ever left my children in the car again and wouldn't ever let them sleep. I got a right scare. I was juggling two small kids on my own.

Fast foward 10 years we how have a brand new Ford that tells you (reminds you) to check for baby in a baby seat. That's a good thing. A lot of these cars have blacked out windows and you can't actually see you've left your child in the back.

And as for those who keep saying, oh I would never do that etc, are you honestly saying you're never driven something and thought afterwards, I don't remember any of that drive?

My car tells me to take my phone, I still have left it behind 3-4 times at least.

Havent left my child in the car, but have forgotten to pick him up from school, when we changed routine.

So I can see how its easily done

I would really really encourage anyone convinced it could never in a million years happen to them to read the linked article.

Especially the pp who thought it would be "an easy way" to get rid of an unwanted child.