Locked baby in car, woman filming

[ShantyShack]

I've changed my name for this as it's very outing.

This afternoon I managed to accidentally lock my keys in the car with my 3 month old baby. I was too far away from home to get the spares. There were paramedics already in the car park who I asked for help and they advised me to contact the fire brigade. I called them and they arrived quickly and begun to try and get into the car. My DD was also with me but she waited in my friends car so was perfectly safe. As expected a fair number of people stopped to have a look. I was very upset as the baby was screaming and I found it quite distressing. I then noticed there was a woman filming me on her phone. I raised my hands as if to say "what are you doing" and she didn't stop. My friend went over and told her to stop and the paramedics actually moved the ambulance to block her view.

AIBU to be upset that the woman was filming what was obviously a horrible situation and to wonder what she hopes to achieve from it? I'm not on Facebook but we have a number of local "Community" boards so have asked friends to look out for her post. Can I then contact admin to get them to take it down? Surely if I can be identified in the video, she needs my permission to post anything?

My Audi used to do the same thing. I locked an Indian takeaway in once, not quite comparable to a baby.....

You need a massive glass of

Oh, I'm on it!

Just to let you know you're not alone with locking your baby in the car with the keys inside 🤦🏻‍♀️ I did it last year and we had to smash a small panel of glass and use a big hook to retrieve the keys from the front seat!

Glad it all ended well in the end!

My car that locks itself (30 seconds after shutting the doors) is a Volkswagen Golf. (2011 reg.) I have never ever had a car before that does it.

I don't think it's even a 'fault' so to speak, I think it is a 'feature' in some cars. It's supposed to be a safety feature, in case you forget to lock it I suppose. Fine. But why after 20 to 30 seconds?! Make it 5 minutes or something! I am quite surprised to see that many other makes of car do it too!

I hate it. As I said, I am quite capable of locking the pissing door myself!

I also locked a child in the car! He was 1, the fire brigade wouldn’t come so I had to call the AA, they said it’s a really common reason they are called out.

Didn’t have a mean-hearted person filming it though, that must have been awful in such an upsetting situation.

My Renault and my Mum's Daewoo both do the locking after a minute thing too.

I wish there was a way to deactivate it.

My Kuga doesn't, nor does OH's Honda Civic

It is a ridiculous feature and one that I will try and deactivate if possible. Like PP said, fine if it's 5 or 10 minutes but sometimes it can take a minute or so to get to the car with DD dawdling down the steps and carrying DS and various bags. And my wing mirrors automatically tuck in when the car is locked so I can easily look out of the window and check if I've locked it or not!

My Renault does the locking after a minute, however, you can unlock from the outside by using the button on the handle next to the door and the key is in range, which it would be when inside the car. The button only doesn't work if you've locked the car manually by pressing the lock button on the key.

That must have been terrifying for you, OP.

Oh god @ShantyShack I've just had horrible flashbacks to when I did this too!

Thankfully I was on my drive and no arseholes were around to film but it was horrendous. I was a wreck until the RAC arrived. I didn't think to phone the fire brigade. Thankfully was not a hot day or we'd have just smashed a window.
The RAC man was totally calm, said it happens more than you'd think and that she would be asleep before he got there (she was).

OH and I totally wrecked the paint on the driver's side trying to break in though!

Just wanted to let you know you're not the only one who has done it.

Urgh, yuck, what a ghoulish vulture. I would have smashed her phone over her head. What the hell is the matter with some people?!

It makes me sick ,I’m never that person to nose on those situations I drive straight passed or walk on ,there’s people helping and that’s what counts. I’d hate a crowd and I think it’s extremely disrespectful, filming though !!! I would’ve wanted a medal for not destroying the damn phone

Everyone else was so lovely though. The paramedics stuck around, offering blankets and let the girls sit in the ambulance. There was a woman in the local cafe who brought us hot drinks and heated up the babies bottle so that I could feed him as soon as he was released.

So other than the horrid woman, my faith was mostly restored.

Maybe she was also happy to see so many people helping and filmed it more of a 'wow look how amazing people are' than a 'look at this distressed mother' kind of thing? Not what I'd do personally but people often film good deeds with a happy outcome.

@Dutchesss wishful thinking but I really don't think that was her intention otherwise she would have lowered the phone when I gestured or at least come over and explained what she was doing. She was a nosey bitch who got a kick out of seeing a woman in distress.

@MammaSchwifty

Ghoulish vulture! Love that!

@ShantyShack

This happened to me just a few months ago. I still don't 100% understand how, as I was inside and my son (2 years old) was outside with his dad. I heard his dad shout "don't freak out, but can you come outside please?"

I went outside and saw my son inside the car and his dad trying to break in. We were visiting son's dad in another country and had no spare keys with me.

As my son is a little older, we tried to get him to press the button on the key to unlock the doors. Bless him, he just kept on pressing the lock button. When we tried to say "other button" he got frustrated, threw the key under the seat and started crying.

The panic/worry is huge, and if someone tried to film me at that moment I would have punched them. I was crying, my son was crying and his dad was frantically trying to break into the car. I can't believe she did that. How heartless to pull out your phone to record a distressed person. I don't understand it.

After about 10 minutes, I couldn't handle it any longer. I told his dad to smash the window. It can happen to anyone, but I imagine only once (when your child is involved!). Every time I put him in the car now I have the car key in my pocket, which I didn't do before.

A place I used to work where staff had company cars, this was always happening, not necessarily with kids in the car but one guy seemed to do it almost weekly. I had to take the spare keys (held at HO) to him more than once - in the end, they started charging him for the expense of sorting it out.

My Kuga doesn't, nor does OH's Honda Civic - my Honda Civic does. But only the back doors and boot. So, if you unlock it, open a back door only, shut the back door, the car locks.

If you open the boot, shut the boot, the boot locks - which is fine if you've got the rest of the car unlocked, but the times I get out of the car, lock it, go to the boot, unlock the boot (separate button on key), get my shoes/coat/whatever out, put that on, shut the boot - panic about where the keys are as I sometimes seem to have a habit of dropping them into the boot while I sort stuff out.

I do wish it could be disabled.

I'm going to check that out VanGoghsDog. I have probably never opened the car doors in that sequence. I will report back.

Not read all the posts.

I think you did the right thing but I wonder if the woman thought you had called out the fire brigade without having been advised to do it. TBH I would have considered breaking the side window glass before calling the fire brigade. (And yes I know it's not that simple to do). I bet the cost of replacing the glass would be a lot, lot, less than calling out the fire brigade.

She was obviously unpleasant and weird but maybe she was thinking you did the wrong thing. I'm NOT excusing her just giving a possible explanation of why she was behaving like a dick.

@FlipF yes I see your point. If the paramedics that I first approached had advised me to smash the window then that's what I would have done without hesitation. But they told me to ring 999 so I did. I apologised to the fire brigade for wasting their time and they reassured me that I had done the right thing. Like I said before, if they do want to bill me for the call out I will pay without argument.

I am glad the OP's experience came out OK in the end. And the woman filming was insensitive.
But would the OP feel slightly better if she saw the eventual video on "YouTube" or something, titled, say, "Successful Rescue by Emergency Services. Well Done!"
These kind of public filming are not necessarily Ghoulish.

people film everythng it is sad as fuck
im sorry this upset you