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.

Oh ok, I get it. Yes, that is a good point. Thanks.

Absolutely untrue.

@Middletoleft If only the writer of the Pulitzer prize-winning WP article had chatted to you first. They could have saved themselves all the research and interviews and no doubt heartache that went into that article and they could have simply written: ‘People just need to focus’.

It happens. When our son was around three weeks old, we took him in a pram round a supermarket to do a weekly shop. One of us was pushing the trolly, the other had the pram. It was the first time we'd taken him to a supermarket and just a couple of weeks after I was discharged from hospital. We were both sleep addled.

We parked the pram at the cheese counter while we waited for cheese and ham to be weighed out and then headed off to the tills. We were nearly at the tills when we realised we'd left the baby at the cheese counter. It wasn't a question of one of us assuming the other was pushing the pram - we'd both forgotten, in the moment, that we'd got a new baby with us in a supermarket that we'd shopped in dozens of times, as just the two of us.

So very sad...I once forgot to pick DS up from nursery and only realised that he wasn't there when the house was too quiet...

I wonder if there is a thing car or kids seat makers could do that works in the opposite way to our seat belt reminder - so once the engine is switched off it pings loudly until you take the child out?

I’ve never forgotten my kids in the car. Also never lost my glasses or keys. Is there something wrong with you?

Frankly I think the kind of parent that could forget their child like this must be utterly disengaged to say the least. When DH and I did nursery drop offs we would always message or call the other to let them know how the drop off went, and relay any other news/conversations with staff etc. Drop off was an important part of the day. We still do it now in fact even though our DC are primary school age. We both work in very high pressure jobs but when we are with our children we are focused on them. So no, I don’t think it’s any normal parent.

That being said, I would welcome any campaign or action (eg car alarms) that would prevent these awful tragedies from happening in the future.

Thanks for posting this. Absolutely heartbreaking.

I didn't know car seat alarms existed. My kids are young adults now but I'll certainly get one if I ever look after grandchildren.

Being male is not the common denominator though and that sort of thinking contributes to the issue, 'it won't happen to me, I am a woman, it's usually men that do this'.

The common factors are:

• Diversion from normal routine
• Tiredness
• Extra stress

But even without those factors, when we have set routines our brains do some weird shit - we auto-pilot, we are not fully aware of our surroundings and this HAS been tested and is well documented.

We are especially likely to do this when driving, probably because to drive you have to submit to subconcious/muscle memory many many processes, you cannot be actively thinking about every single thing you do in order to drive somewhere.

I auto-pilot all the time and when I think about it, struggle to remember if I have done a thing or not - i sometimes forget my daily medication despite an alarm. Why? Because I remember taking it so very very strongly that I think I took it. The alarm went off, I thought about taking it... and that memory merges with the 1000's of other memories of taking my pills following the alarm. Only sometimes, I haven't.

I have lost track of the times I've been in peoples cars and they have driven me to their home not mine, to their work not where we were meant to be going, to my old home address not the new one - all because of how our brains opt out of active thought when we're doing something routine.

So yes - leaving a child who can't alert you, in a car when you're out of routine or stressed or extra tired or any combination of those things is entirely possible for any driver, regardless of gender or intellectual level or any other factor you care to think of.

It is absolutely not the same as leaving the dog in the car, mostly because those situations are caused by people intentionally leaving the dog, and most dogs will not lie there silently in the back when you pull up anywhere either, so forgetting a dog is in the car is extremely rare (I am sure it has happened on occasion for the same reasons forgetting a child is in the car has).

No hun. One is common and normal. The other is serious neglect that no amount of 'distraction' excuses explains.

Anyone who does this should have a thorough neuro assessment and be supervised in all activities imo.

Btw The Washington post article is behind a paywall...

They should orobably remove it for particularly helpful articles like that...

if you look in OP's posts you'll see I've posted an unpaywalled link

No not the whole time, just occasional glances. Obviously.

It would never have happend to me I guarantee that.

I'd also say people intentionally leave dogs
Nobody intentionally goes to work leaving their baby in the back seat.

How utterly tragic.

Every summer two things happen without fail, despite all public-health warnings: People drowning and children being left in hot cars. The apparent inevitability is quite maddening.

Perhaps we should compromise and allow dc in car seats to be put in the passenger seat.

@pigmygoatsinjumpers I remember when DS was a newborn, both DH and I got in the car to go food shopping and completely forgot about him strapped in his car seat in the hallway. We got to the junction at the end of the road and looked at each other in horror.

We’d only been out of hospital for a few days and I’d had a c-section so wasn’t allowed to pick him up so got in the car first to wait for DH. Picking up a car seat just wasn’t part of our usual routine.

Anyone...unfortunately. I took my daughter to nursery every day, so chances are it wouldnt happen to me. But I used to phone my husband on the very rare occasions he took her. Habit kills.

Last year when this happened in Australia we had a long thread. I argued black and blue with the people claiming they could NEVER forget their child.

Utter, total nonsense. No one knows that it could happen to them ... until it does. Its not a sign of parental neglect just way the human brain can be wired - particularly when out of their normal routine (which is why anecdotally it seems to happen to fathers more then mothers).

It is just so utterly utterly tragic that my heart breaks each time it happens.

In hot countries they need to make some kind of alarm system mandatory is cars and certainly if I had a child where I took them to childcare en route to work in any country I would put in place some form of habit to ensure I couldn't not look in the back (bag, phone on back seat etc etc).

God love them.

Isn't the whole point that the parents in these cases think they did do the drop-off?

Oh good to see these people are here on this thread, as ever. The lack of understanding of the human brain is astounding.

I think sub-consciously, yes.

But if you got a phone call or a text I think your conscious brain would suddenly go "oh fuck" and you'd run to your work car park.

I think the usual issue is they think the drop off has been done as usual by their partner. So they think kid is safe and there's nothing to jolt their memory that they should have done it. A call provides that. You could also set an alarm with a reminder for just after your work time (for days when routine has changed and you have some of the risk factors these cases have in common)

Actually a lot of the time its parents out of routine.
Its Dad doing drop off because Mum has an appointment or vice versa it's parents going into auto pilot
Completely forgetting they have the child in the back seat.
Completely forgetting they were meant to do drop off and not the other parent

For those who can’t be bothered to read the article and have your cosy world view rocked:

”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.”

This is where victim blaming comes from. This is where ‘it would never happen to me’ comes from. It’s where ‘there is something wrong with these people’ comes from.