How can anyone 'forget' that they've left their toddler in the car for 5 hours?

[sonearsofar]

I've just heard the terrible story in the news today. Apparently an Italian university 'forgot' that he had left his 22 month old toddler in the back of the car. She died after being in there for 5 hours.

It plagues me too Annie. I often think that the worst possible thing that could ever happen would be for one of my DCs to die and for it to be in some way my fault (e.g. car accident or a scenario like this). Watched a horrible episode of House the other day that left DH and I really shaken up, where a woman smothered her own newborn baby whil having some sort of psychotic hallucination. Dreadful, dreadful.

It's the curse of modern life: parents who are too overwhelmed by other responsibilities to focus on their children as first priority.

Heartbreaking.
This is actually a recurring nightmare I have, as I used to drop ds off at nursery on my way to work. I never actauly did forget, but whenever I am ill I have the same dream that I did.
Poor, poor parents - can't believe people can be anything but deperately sad for them.

It could absolutely happen to anyone. Reading the Washington Post article, someone in it said that the problem is that nobody thinks it could happen to them. The description of Lynne Balfour's case, the 'perfect storm' of Swiss cheese slices that would enable this to happen, has chilled me to the bone. I can see how easily this could happen. And presumably, knowing that it could happen isn't necessarily a defence against it happening anyway, if you read the ways in which the 'defences' can stack up and still all fail together.

As a side issue, I've never had an issue before with leaving a baby or child in a parked car at the petrol station while I pay, or in front of a friend's house if I stop for two minutes to drop something off. The time you spend outside your car is minute, you have the car in your eyeline the whole time ... but even then, there's a tiny chance, I suppose, that something totally unexpected might happen to delay your return and at the same time perhaps, put your baby out of your mind. Your friend might have a seizure, the petrol station might get held up by an armed robber... well ok, I suck at dramatic plotlining, but you see what I'm getting at. Though I suspect you wouldn't forget your child in those instances, even if you weren't able to get to them for a while. The 'classic' instances outlined in the article seem to be associated with dropping a child off at daycare for the day, and for various reasons not doing so.

People run over their own toddlers in the drive. They over-dress their babies and put them in warm cars on long journeys and the babies overheat. They leave the baby alone with a piece of fruit for the time it takes to sign for a parcel and the baby chokes. They think that the gate to the pool on holiday is locked, and it's not and the toddler falls in and drowns.

I would never judge. I know I'm not perfect. I'm forgetful and hormonal and, er, human. Swiss cheese theory makes sense to me. I know I've been lucky and the holes have never joined up.

Poor, poor family in Italy. My heart goes out to them.

'It's the curse of modern life: parents who are too overwhelmed by other responsibilities to focus on their children as first priority.'

I think it was sometimes worse in the past, Bonsoir. I was researching central European approaches to child-raising at the end of the nineteenth among farming communities. It was quite normal for babies to be swaddled and hooked up from the ceiling during the day while the family got on with the work. They were 'out of the way'.

And in the last World War parents were exhausted from fighting/protecting themselves/finding food. Some of the things my father got up to in London during the V1 and V2s attack would have had social workers round to take him into care if they were happening now: my grandfather was away in the war and my grandmother was busy working and trying to find rations, etc.

I suppose we have less excuse now, though.

Medieval babies were always falling in to fires or rivers too. Children are vulnerable and parents make mistakes. It's a recurring tragedy.

My dad once called the police to a baby who had been left in a car in the carpark on a hot day at the Malvern Flower Show. The police broke the window of the car to get the baby out, and the paramedics told my dad that the baby could have been dead in minutes if he hadn't raised the alarm.

It was just sheer luck that he walked by that car, and happened to glance into it - the baby was already unconscious, so there was no crying to alert him to the baby's presence.

I have arrived at work before with a sleeping dd in the back of the car, having completely forgotten to drop her at the nursery. I can see how it happens.

The moral I'm drawing from this is ALWAYS to investigate when a car alarm goes off in a carpark. Instead of just blaming someone brushing by too close and setting it off, it might be a child in distress.

yep.
and don't be afraid to stay with a car with unattended children in it, or to call the police
and try and get into the habit of checking back seats before leaving your car.

So tragic

I read the link too Greythorne it brought back lots of memories. I remember when 10 month old Mikey died. His parents were members of the same IVF forum as me. Mikey was a much longed for and very much loved child. I think about him often. They took it in turns to drop Mikey off at daycare and his father was rushing to a meeting that particular day. Mikey's Mum never blamed her husband, she blamed the stresses of modern day living and not properly stopping to think things through. His Dad took total responsibility, it was heartbreaking.

Mikey's death absolutely crushed the family. They have done a lot of work to ensure it doesn't happen again. Idea's like putting the toddler's changing bag on the front seat next to you when you leave the house in the morning.

My heart goes out to the Italian family

497 deaths of children in the US from hyperthermia 1998-2010. Many individual states have laws about leaving unattended children in cars. Cars can heat up rapidly, to extremely high temperatures.

In the cold, frostbite and hypothermia can occur, but more slowly. There is also a danger of children trying to escape from a very cold car in winter and getting lost in snow/ suffering the effects of extreme cold outside the car.

I once accidentally locked my daughter into the car (old fashioned kind, which you could lock the keys into). It was a hot (by British standards) summer day and she was about four months and became distressed almost immediately. I realised as soon as the door closed but as the keys were in locked inside I had no way of getting her out, other than smashing a window, which worried me as I thought the glass would cut her.

We were very lucky. An RAC van happened to be in the car park as someone had called for breakdown assistance. I saw him driving off and threw myself at his van. He had one of those things that looks like a bent coat-hanger and he undid the lock by twisting it through the top of the (closed) window and pulling up the door catch.

She was only locked in for ten minutes but was already very hot and bothered. The thought of her being in the car for any longer is really scary. A bit different in that I didn't forget her, I just exhibited total forgetfulness for a crucial two seconds while I was shutting the door without realising that the keys were still in the ignition. You couldn't make that mistake with cars today.

abra this can still happen, my friend accidentally locked her dcs in her car just the other week, and had to call police who smashed the window. Not sure how old their car is but not that old!

yes, it's still possible to lock key/children in cars

i did it not that long ago. I had got ds2 out of the car, and when I went to get ds3 out I put the keys down on the seat and unstrapped hm and got him out and sht the door.

then I realised that I had pressed the lock button on the keyfob before putting them down. so the doors were locked and once I closed the door that was that.

thankfully I'd got both of the children out, but it's easily done,

I was lucky I had a friend with me because DP (who has the spare keys) was up in London, but when I rang him he said he'd left his keys at his office, so my friend had to drive me to his office so i could get the spare keys.

argh!

oh and our car is a 2006 volvo

I locked the doors (manual central locking) then shut mine when I got out, then realised DD1 was still in the back seat. No problem, just use the key? It snapped in the lock, broke off clean. I tried to poke a piece of metal debris I found at the roadside through the window to pull open the lock, then heard a security guard behind me asking what I was doing. He ended up managing to unlock the door using a tool he had similar to a coat hanger (took quite a while) then drove me and DD1 to get a new key at a fencing operation pawnshop/locksmith in a very run down part of a major American city. I recall that day whenever I hear the song 'Summer in the city'.

There are a few tricks to use even without alarms on the car seats:

Keep a teddy bear in the car seat when it's empty and get into the habit of putting the bear on the seat next to you when your kid takes the bear's spot. Get in the habit of putting your wallet or phone on the floor in the back. Turn on the music on your mp3 and keep it in the back. Keep the car seat on the same side, always.

I had to phone the police last year to break in to a car in a supermarket car park on the hottest day of the year. Dad had "forgotten" about 2/3 year old asleep in the car and when she woke up alone crying and screaming she set the car alarm off and thank God she did. The most worrying thing though was other people saw this said how terrible it was but then just left her. Thankfully she was ok. Dad was a middle aged man with a brand new Jag BTW not some teenage chav in an escort.

What it says to me is that many parents in Western society are run ragged and there is not enough collective responsibility for children to ensure that we minimise the difficulties for each other, and maximise children's safety and wellbeing. Instead we spend lots of time and money fretting about miniscule numbers of paedophiles etc.

That having been said, I can perfectly well imagine forgetting a child in a car briefly, if routines had been changed, but blipping the thing continually throughout the day from the office window, without making the connection? That would surely jog any sane person's memory. (I daren't read the link,by the way).

I read that Washington post article and what jumps out to me is how many of those parents were driving to work and spent the entire drive on their cellphones. That then took priority in their mind and they rushed into work to carry on.

I am sorry but priorities are necessary when you have children. You put them before work!! You don't use a cellphone while driving and if work is exploding then fine, deal with as much as you can at home but then it goes on hold until you reach the workplace. When my children are in the car I am their mum first and foremost. I can think about work things once I've dropped them off but in all honesty I try to use that time as the quiet before the storm. I don't ever phone while driving - it's way too distracting! When I get into work - I work and sometimes if things are manic when I get home - I work but I generally hold that until the children are in bed and my colleagues have to respect that.

I have NEVER forgotten my children and in my opinion there is no excuse for doing it and I would never forgive a partner if they did it. I just couldn't....

researchernews.larc.nasa.gov/archives/2002/020802/CPS.html

Shame this never went into production. Car seat manufacturers could have chosen to incorporate this into their products. I would have paid extra for it.

Presumably climate change will mean that there will be more cases like this in the UK in the future.

Found one.

www.babyalert.info/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=2