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*warning. Distressing* Mum leaves 21 month old in car

97 replies

Polymamas · 29/06/2018 23:20

article here, it is very hard to read

I know this has happened before but what I don't understand is how she got in the car at lunchtime, with her DD still in the carseat, drove to a place for lunch, got back in the car and drove back to work without noticing her daughter.

If she didn't go to her car all day then I can see how it could happen. But how could you get in a car, out again, twice and not see your child?

It's so sad :(

OP posts:
Moonkissedlegs · 30/06/2018 10:59

I wondered if it was a rear facing seat?

I don't know, it's absolutely hideous and that poor woman will never get over it.

DownUdderer · 30/06/2018 11:02

My 2.5 yr old is silent in the car. He is mesmerised looking outside or into space. I often glance back to check he’s awake.

Cel982 · 30/06/2018 11:05

My car has tinted windows in the back and rear-facing car seats for both kids. This could happen frighteningly easily.

Hopskipjumping · 30/06/2018 11:09

Such a sad story. I have a 21month old and Its heartbreaking but I take the article at face value and assume its an accident. Can't imagine anyone deliberately leaving a child to die in a car. The daily mail comments are horrible.

I have a 21 month old and shes always with me. When she rarely isn't with me I will be driving and glance in my rear view and have a mini panic about where she is then I remember she's with someone else.

BewareOfDragons · 30/06/2018 11:12

I feel for her. How awful and she;ll have to live with her tragic mistake.

A break in routine, especially for a parent who works in an intense, high stress, long hours job like pediatric nursing, could easily forget such a change in routine and go on autopilot to work.

Gene Weingarten wrote a powerful piece called Fatal Distraction some years ago on how these tragedies can easily occur to anyone who has such a break in routine. That's how it usually happens. He won a Pulitzer for it.

Anyone who thinks it could never happen to them and that parents should be imprisoned for a tragic error is deluded and insensitive. They'll live with it for the rest of their lives.

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?noredirect=on&utm_term=.e4d14e56b7d2

JessicaJonesJacket · 30/06/2018 11:13

I remember that Pulitzer prize-winning article. It's one of the most harrowing articles I've ever read but it does explain how it happens.

Your brain goes into auto-pilot during your daily routine and you need to make a conscious effort to remind yourself of the change or give yourself a visual reminder eg a toy on the front seat; putting your bag in the back of the car with the baby if you will need your bag when you get to work, etc.

By the time the mum was going to the coffee shop, I'd imagine the little girl was unconscious.

It's completely tragic Sad

0hCrepe · 30/06/2018 11:20

That poor woman. What a tragedy.

RJnomore1 · 30/06/2018 11:25

I forgot to take my youngest to nursery once.

I noticed her about 5 miles into my commute. If I'd worked where I do now I'd have been in work for ten minutes by then.

She was about 2 and thst day she was completely silent.

The baby might have been unconscious by lunch.

lapenguin · 30/06/2018 11:28

Sadly if its not part of her routine, baby was asleep and in a rear facing car seat (don't think it says but I know a lot of people choose extended rear facing) I can see how it is possible. I feel for her, she will never be able to forgive herself. Complete accident and can happen to anyone! Hope she gets the help she needs.

WeaselsRising · 30/06/2018 11:29

I don't understand why nurseries don't call parents if the child doesn't arrive. Schools do.

meditrina · 30/06/2018 11:30

"I just don't buy it. I have a child of the same age and I don't believe that you can just forget they are there."

Then you are maintaining a belief despite all the evidence to the contrary. The 'Swiss cheese' theory is well known and well evidenced.

One case that stuck on my mind was when the parent returned to the car and found police there, they were so distraught they eye had to be restrained by officers (plural) to stop them shooting themself on the spot with a snatched police gun.

WeaselsRising · 30/06/2018 11:34

My DH used to have a complicated school run with 3 different schools some miles apart. One morning he drove into school one, straight through and out the other side without stopping.

The children were much older and shouted at him that he hadn't let DC out of the car and it's been a funny anecdote ever since. But it's easy to see what could have happened with one baby.... and he did that school run every single day.

IfyouseeRitaMoreno · 30/06/2018 11:37

It says in the article that the father usually dropped the child off and she'd done it as a one-off, so it wasn't part of her usual routine. that may have been why she forgot.

I'm sure that the fact that she is quite vocally desperate to kill herself is evidence of her lack of intent.

She is off on bail now and sadly I almost hope she does find a way to kill herself as I couldn't live with the pain of knowing I'd caused the death of my own child. She will be in agony for the rest of her life.

TheQueef · 30/06/2018 11:40

I've forgotten DS once. I left him in the trolley seat at Asda.

I unloaded the shopping in the boot, returned the trolley, got in the car and exited Asda.
I realised as I went around the roundabout he wasn't there.

Even twenty odd years later my bowels go liquid when I think about it.

LinoleumBlownapart · 30/06/2018 11:45

I think a US company needs to come with a compulsory car seat alarm, either the car or the car seats need a sensor. Like the seat belt warning alarm.

I can't judge parents. I picked my two up from school 14 and 12. My 14 year old got in the front, my daughter put her school bag in one side, but due to her younger brother's car seat in the middle, she had to get in the other side. I heard the door shut and I left. I was talking to my son and I was distracted by a pen drive I'd left somewhere with vital info. I left my 12 year old standing on the street. If she'd been trying to get in the car instead of walking around the back of it, I could have seriously injured her. It was a wake up call. I looked in the rear view mirror a few times but I was concentrating on the road behind and not the backseat.
Distraction and stress are massive contributing factors.

Mishmishmish · 30/06/2018 11:47

I've never forgotten reading that WP article, it's horrifying. I think the journo found that it most often happened when there is a change of routine, e.g. Your car is in the garage for a service so you are using your husbands car or a temporary car. That's when it happens. So tragic.

bobstersmum · 30/06/2018 11:49

I don't know what to make of it but it reduced me to tears reading it. It does seem like a tragic accident. I understand the mother wanting to kill herself, I would too.

LinoleumBlownapart · 30/06/2018 11:53

I will say this about the US and it's harsh but true. Their maternity leave is substandard. My job had 2 or 3 months only and that was one of the longest. I left but I know many women that were not fit to be back at work. Up all night and working all day. Mother's going back to work, long hours of childcare, no proper recovery and rest could all be contributing factors. Even 21 months later. That and the fact that everyone drives. It could be why this is so common in the US.

TheQueef · 30/06/2018 11:56

I never normally took DS shopping but that day we were actually going to a party later!

I still can't explain it I was worrying about a health issue and was so busy thinking about work and letting them down I forgot he was there.
It honestly just slipped out of mind.

I'm still shuddering at what could have happened.

I can't imagine how she's coping.

SlightAggrandising · 30/06/2018 11:57

People musing in here should read the linked articles.

People have been trying to make alarms for years. It's all explained.

FeralBeryl · 30/06/2018 11:58

God how utterly tragic Sad
Re: lunchtime, the poor little mite was probably already unconscious, at the very least drowsy after a few hours in the seat. If it was a rear facing I can see how she may not have looked.
It's honestly hideous isn't it.

Grandmaswagsbag · 30/06/2018 12:03

How utterly tragic. I can well understand how this happens when you’re on autopilot. For instance I’ve been going somewhere in the car and found myself driving the way to work without making a conscious descision and not intending too. Imagine it’s a similar thing. Assume car seat was rear facing so she wouldn’t have seen the child. Poor poor woman.

TinklyLittleLaugh · 30/06/2018 12:06

My DH forgot he had our baby in the car and went into B and Q once. Fortunately someone spotted her and an announcement was made over the tannoy. And fortunately it was winter and she was warmly wrapped up and none the worse for it.

He was very upset though and now he takes a very forgiving view of these kind of cases.

NotTerfNorCis · 30/06/2018 12:12

That's hideous. It's like something out of a horror film.

Maybe she didn't see her daughter at lunch because the little girl had collapsed and was lying down?

corythatwas · 30/06/2018 12:14

My MIL, who was a very good mother in all respects, once left her baby in the greengrocer's. Which was fine, because the chances of anything bad happening there were very slight. But if it could happen there, of course it could equally well have happened somewhere else more dangerous like a hot car. And an overheating child would go sleepy and drowsy very quickly.