Another baby has died in a hot car (Spain)

[comoatoupeira]

Another child has died in a horrific way after being accidentally left in a hot car.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/21/girl-dies-car-extreme-heat-spain

again, it was the father, distracted by work, who forgot to drop her off at nursery. I honesty don’t think this is a man/woman thing I think it is a work thing. In every one of this abominable stories it is someone being distracted by a work situation and they forget they haven’t dropped off the child. The article explains really well why it happens and how we need to make safeguards because we can’t rely on ourselves at all times.

distraction kills! Much more than malevolent intent.

AIBU to think that every single parent needs to read this article to realise it can happen to anyone and sometimes extreme stress and the power of habit can overcome us and cause the worst to happen
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/fatal-distraction-forgetting-a-child-in-thebackseat-of-a-car-is-a-horrifying-mistake-is-it-a-crime/2014/06/16/8ae0fe3a-f580-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html

BE WARNED it is the most upsetting piece of writing I have ever read.

How does it tell the difference between a empty child's seat and an occupied child's car seat?

Weight

So the weight of the child seat doesn’t trigger it? Just the additional weight of the child?

Don’t know
but presumably a setting that can be adjusted to confirm the usual weight of the seat. It would be a crap system if couldn’t adjust for a car seat. The op would be constantly receiving notifications

You’re not biased and yes of course the worst punishment is the loss of a child and something you caused.

Saying parents/people would say “whoopsie we all
forget things” is unbelievably cruel.

I think people are saying their cats do just that, they say “check back seats” everytime they get out of the car, so it’s ineffective.

Cars, not cats!

'I really, really hope that when misfortune happens to you the people in your life show more humanity than you are showing on this issue'

Misfortune?! Forgetting my kids and leaving them alone for hours is not misfortune.

I'll ask again, if a parent 'forgot' their child was in the house went to work and the house burnt down would his too be 'misfortune' or not abject neglect?

We have a responsibility to care for our dc, yes it's tragic but my sympathy lies with the dc and the other parent who thought their dc was in safe hands. All the excusing about different routines then conversely autopilot does not explain it.

We should not need beeping seats to remind us we are responsible for the safety of a dc.

What does on the ball even mean in this context? If by on the ball you mean engaged and interested in my child when they are in my care then yes, I am 100% on the ball. Are there periods of time where you have the sole care and the company of your child but you ignore them completely and don’t give them a second thought? These people have the entire day while their child is at nursery to focus completely on their work. Until then, their child should be their primary concern.

Do you have twins? I can't work out if you forgot one baby or two as there's a mix of plural and singular in your post.

It’s got nothing to do with how clever, smart or organised someone is. It’s about priorities and engagement with your children. Some of the most highly intelligent and high flying people I know are the least engaged with their DC, and I could totally imagine this happening to them. They are far too busy to pay any proper attention to their DC on the nursery run. They just want to offload them asap so they can get on with what’s really important - their work.

Hark at the parents on here who are so very sure they would never forget their child.

But even they are human. Illness, sleep deprivation, life stress, bad news, an ill-timed phone call about a frantic work matter...any of it can cause a fatal distraction. The PPs who are utterly convinced it could never happen to them are deluding themselves.

In fact, I'd even argue it might be MORE likely to happen to them because they won't entertain any notion that it could, so they are not on guard against it.

Overconfidence is not great for safety.

'Hark at the parents on here who are so very sure they would never forget their child'

Hark all you like. This is thankfully a very rare occurrence despite folk saying 'oo it could happen to anyone!' No, it couldn't. Neglect is neglect no matter what excuses the parent has.

The paper is sobering, and makes some very good points which you might want to consider before judging…

“Ed Hickling believes he knows why. Hickling is a clinical psychologist from Albany, N.Y., who has studied the effects of fatal auto accidents on the drivers who survive them. He says these people are often judged with disproportionate harshness by the public, even when it was clearly an accident, and even when it was indisputably not their fault.

Humans, Hickling said, have a fundamental need to create and maintain a narrative for their lives in which the universe is not implacable and heartless, that terrible things do not happen at random, and that catastrophe can be avoided if you are vigilant and responsible.

In hyperthermia cases, he believes, the parents are demonized for much the same reasons. "We are vulnerable, but we don't want to be reminded of that. We want to believe that the world is understandable and controllable and unthreatening, that if we follow the rules, we'll be okay. So, when this kind of thing happens to other people, we need to put them in a different category from us. We don't want to resemble them, and the fact that we might is too terrifying to deal with. So, they have to be monsters."”

Nope, you ve the most precious thing in the world in your care.

Distracted? my partner died in an accident when our baby was 11months old, i had plenty of "distractions" yet strangely enough, never forgot my baby was in the car or when older, near a pool.

Of course these things happen but ultimately, its carelessness, making excuses for basic lack of care (usually done by MC/better off parents) is one reason, we keep getting these tragedies.

It´s never happened to me. I still had an app on my phone where when I walked away from the car the alarm went off, making me check the back seat. Worked by coupling my phone automatically with the car bluetooth. I am usually very organised and very perfect but what if one day I am not so perfect? I am human and humans are fallible. I believe that this disbelief in my total perfection is what makes my kid be in less danger than yours.

Nope. A 'psychologist' musing about what he thinks does not cut it. Sorry.

Believe me I find this whole thing as disturbing and distressing as the next person, but the victims here are the dc and the other parent.

Yes we can all feel sorry for the colossal mistake that the parent responsible made and how they'll have to live with it for the rest of their life but the excusing and the 'ah could happen to anyone' is nonsense.

'Of course these things happen but ultimately, its carelessness, making excuses for basic lack of care (usually done by MC/better off parents) is one reason, we keep getting these tragedies'

Exactly. A basic lack of care.

I read it as two nursery aged children and a new baby so 3 in total.

I think you’ve just made his point :)

Thats how I read it too.

I think people saying they'd never forget their children are totally wrong.
People are creatures of habit, we all go into autopilot at times.
How many times have people put stuff in the car thinking, 'I'll drop that at the tip / recycle bin / return to Next on my way home' only to find it still in the car later?

'How many times have people put stuff in the car thinking, 'I'll drop that at the tip / recycle bin / return to Next on my way home' only to find it still in the car later'

Getting rid of rubbish isn't comparable to caring for your dc. As an aside though no, if I'm going to the tip I go.

Being flakey and a bit distracted is one thing. Leaving small kids in a car for hours unable to help themselves is quite another.

If I genuinely thought I was capable of a fatal distraction I’d never leave the house. Not all parents are created equal. It’s the toddler that drowns in the bath because the parent runs downstairs to fetch a towel and gets distracted. The child that wanders into the road because the parent is too busy looking at their phone in the playground. The child that pulls a bookcase ontop of them because the parents didn’t get around to tethering it to the wall. The child that gets forgotten about in a car because the parent is paying so little attention to them it’s like they’re not even there.

All avoidable.

This is only comparable if you place the same amount of importance on your children as you do a bit of rubbish for the tip.

I could never read the Washington Post article because I know it would be too upsetting.

These incidents capture the insane pressure that parents are under in the modern world. It wouldn’t happen to me because we don’t take kids to school/nursery in the car. It must be hard to carry on living after causing your child to die like this.