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.

I think this is a genuine cause alongside habit formation.

I left my baby on the front doorstep when bringing in the shopping - put away the shopping made a cuppa and then went to check on the baby who was lying in her car seat by the front door happily staring at the sky.... had probably only been 10-15 minutes and no harm done but I can see how it could happen

Haven't read the whole thread, sorry. But this happens in Italy and now there is a law that you must have an alarm to alert you if a child is left in the car seat. I think in the US bigger cars are a contributing factor too - kids are literally further away from you and easier to forget.

If it’s tiredness making parents forget their kids in the car then they just shouldn’t drive. Driving whilst tired is like drunk driving.

I remember reading about this a few years ago.

I think they recommended you kept something in the car seat when the child isn't there.

When you put your child in the seat you remove the item and put it on the passenger seat.

Or you do the same but with something you wear. A hat or a ribbon you tie around your wrist.

The reasoning with the phone suggestion though is that in these cases it doesn’t seem to be a simple “ooops I forgot to get Billy from the car” but a genuine and unquestioned belief that Billy is safe in his usual childcare because that’s where they dropped him off. Any thoughts they have about their child throughout the day register no differently to other days when their child is safe and well.

Picking up your phone before leaving the car is usually automatic (in the same way a child is, of course) so in its first instance it’s another check in place, but if you do walk away and totally forget your phone you tend to need it and realise pretty soon and go back to get it. Phones might be forgotten more frequently than children, but because of that we’re more used to checking where they are!

Because people always have their phone with them but they don't always have their child with them. It's a different part of the brain and the part that is more reliable than conscious thought.

It's very easily done. My dad forgot my brother was in the car when he was a baby and fell asleep in the back. My dad usually went straight to work but had to drop my brother at nursery that morning and because my brother was so quiet, my dad went on his usual way to work. Thankfully my brother woke up when my dad arrived in his office car park (an hour from his nursery) and my dad realised his mistake. He could have easily left him in the car. Very scary.

I did this when I was a kid. I used to ride my bike or walk to the local town (3m). I cycled in, walked back on autopilot and found my bike missing from the shed three days later. It was still propped up outside the newsagents when I walked back to get it.

We lived in America years ago and it happened to a work colleague. His wife had been to the shops, brought all the shopping in and completely forget her sleeping toddler in the back of the car who she didn't normally have on a Tuesday, for example. Really tragic.

In the UK, we were once at a party and about two hours in one of the dads was like "where's Harry gone?" And they'd left one of their sons (who was about 12) in the car. They'd presumed he'd got out of the car with everyone else and then gone inside the house, but he was in the car very still incase he set the alarm off!

I think when you're with a big group it's easy to think that someone else has their eye on your kids.

These are almost always parents going to work. What should they do in the morning if they feel tired? Just tell their boss they won’t make it in? Use public transport instead? Unless you live in a city, I gather public transport is not really a thing in large parts of the US. Even if there is public transport, it will usually take much longer than driving and these parents also need to drop a child at a childcare facility en route - this might not be possible using the public transport networks available.

Parents of young children are often tired. Realistically, most of them can’t give up driving for the first couple of years of the child’s life.

I think it’s horrendous. There was a woman in the US who did this and her baby died and she set up a charity after about support and I am thinking WTF . I cannot get my head around this at all - they should be in jail for neglect, not setting up a charity.

I always thought this but...

Three weeks ago (in Uk, warm day but not hot thankfully!) I left my four year old in the car by mistake for about five minutes.

We have a routine that the child sitting next to her in the middle unbuckles her seat and closes the car door behind her once she's out. That one afternoon, two of the kids were at an after school event. There was me in the driving seat, my oldest (13) in the front passenger seat and my daughter in her car seat behind driver seat.

Pulled up , grabbed my phone from the holder next to the steering wheel, handbag which in the footwell and came in. Locked the door. Was preparing after school snack when I realised daughter was in car.

That minor change in routine threw me out. Fortunately car is on my driveway, it wasn't a hot day and it was literally five minutes; possibly less. I felt horrific, but I can now see why it does happen.

I've changed our routine now to avoid it happening again.

Have you read through some of the stories on this thread?

There's also a link to a really good article about it, I've read it before but can't quite face it again in truth. Still though, if you think this is always neglect rather than accidental you should read it.

If you are too tired to drive then don’t drive. Of course it’s logistics just like a drunk driver having to think to not drive home.

In an ideal world, that is what would happen. In the real world however, millions of tired people drive every day. If every tired person didn’t drive to work tomorrow morning, the economy would grind to a halt.

It may be that the reason a parent is driving when tired is not that they wilfully got less sleep than they needed because they watched a late film, but that the very child who is now at risk of being forgotten in the car kept them awake half the night with a minor ear-ache/tooth hurt/nightmares. This does sometimes happen when one has small children.

The one I remember was on Oprah. Husband usually dropped. Oth dcs, he was bringing one to dentist and it was her first day back in school as head teacher after summer break. She set out and stopped for treats for the staff, taking a different route to daycare. She went into school meetings etc and at 4pm someone came to her office distraught. The 999 call was absolutely horrendous. In custody she begged the police officer for a gun repeatedly to shoot herself. It was just awful. Her husband somehow could see her pain and didn't punish her further and somehow they stayed together and used the situation to warn others. I had no dc when I watched it but always felt there but for the Grace of God go I.. It happened to a man in Ireland a few years ago during extreme heat, baby's first day in creche.

https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/family-tragedy-after-baby-dies-after-being-left-in-car-on-hottest-day/35757623.html distracted by a call.

I remember getting ready one morning and older dc needed me for something while getting baby into coat and buggy, I left to sort him and then forget to click baby's buggy strap and out he tumbled, thankfully blanket came with hjm and he was wearing a wooly hat. I felt dreadful but knew it was that change in the usual run of events.

@mikado1 That is so incredibly sad. It’s baffling to me that some posters think people like that belong in prison- what would be the point of that? There IS no way to punish that poor woman- she will do it all by herself for the rest of her life.

Exactly, that's what her husband said. Oprah asked him had he ever in anger or grief said anything to her and he said he couldn't as he could see the absolutely she was putting herself through. They lost friends over it and neighbours stopped speaking to them.

If you have ever driven a familiar route and realised when you got there that you couldn't remember the journey, or executed a routine on autopilot, this could have been you. Pretending it couldn't is just a) fundamentally misunderstanding why this happens b) hiding from the scary nature of the universe and the fact that terrible things happen by throwing other human beings under the bus and pretending they're somehow different from you.

What do you think should be the consequence for people who leave their dogs in the car and the dog dies from overheating? Should they get the same compassion you think parents should get for leaving their child in the car and the child dying from overheating? Or should they get a legal judgment?

I think generally people leave dogs in cars because it’s convenient for them. So a totally conscious decision- which is obviously different to the horrible and tragic cases we’re talking about here.