Grandma responsible for death of 2nd Grandchild

[JustAskingThisQ]

https://www.wdhn.com/news/florida-grandmother-who-left-infant-in-hot-car-found-not-guilty-of-manslaughter/

I'm just watching this trial on YouTube and thought I'd look it up properly. This child, Uriel, was 7 months old and she left her in a hot car. Previously, she was looking after a toddler grandchild (same daughter's child) who slipped away while she was asleep and drowned.

I'm just gobsmacked.

My thoughts exactly.

It only takes 2 inches of water to drown in for children, it's quite scary to realise.

Those poor children. This is almost unbelievable. I don’t know how the grandmother got away with these deaths and I certainly don’t know how her daughter allowed her to have the second child.

My friend had a lovely little pond when her daughter had the first grandchild it was filled in.

Two friends filled in ponds when they bought houses with one.

We had a large pond full of fish. The blacksmith made a meshwork to go over it which was padlocked and a fence with a padlocked gate built around it. We didn't remove it for at least a decade.

My granny's wouldn't have had care of another child.

Video of a trained baby doing just that...

Over 6.5 million views. Hope people sign up for training.

I read that Washington Post article years ago and I’ve never forgotten it. So well-written and so utterly heartbreaking.

I'd seen some of the trial but not know about the first death. How utterly horrific for everyone, the poor parents.

I felt quite sorry for the Grandmother during the trial, I could imagine how it could happen, I've had times I've driven places and honestly couldn't tell you anything about the drive because it's just been on auto pilot or had days where I've got distracted and forgotten things (let the bath flood the house because I forgot it was running / burnt the odd dinner / taken DC to school on an inset day once) and generally I am a responsible person who can be trusted. I'm even calm and sensible in life and death situations.

Having two children die in your care though, there are no words really, it's either beyond tragic or completely negligent. Both maybe.

Come off it, this isn't about 'there but for the grace go I', it's finger-wagging smuggery. Dress it up as a 'health warning' if you like.

Water butts are similar - anything where they can tip in head first and not be able to get their arms past their head or back onto the rim to push out backwards.

I disagree, people may not always think of things- I'd never have considered a half full bucket or lavatory as a drowning risk had someone not posted a Rospa guide to child safety around water.

I'm always happy to learn how to be safer around children and most responsible people feel the same.

And a dig at the US. A twofer.

The US gets very hot and people need to be more vigilant. However, the problem is not contained to the US. Children have died in hot cars in Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Spain and other hot countries, too.

That being said there's no excuse whatsoever for leaving a child in the care of a woman who has clearly been inattentive in the past. They need to put censors in cars and PROSECUTE these people to the fullest extent of the law. Once could be an accident. Twice is a pattern.

I’ve been following this case. The first child she had taken a sleeping tablet in the day. That in itself was negligent she wouldn’t have been looking after anymore of my children.

my sister looked after one of my pets when I went on holiday. Never did find him I never let her look after any pets since.

I don't believe these were accidents.

I have a terrible memory and this has been one of my fears for years. I read once that it happens when your usual routine is disrupted it almost causes a blip in your mind.

So for example if I usually drop ds1 off at breakfast club then ds2 off at nursery before driving to work every single morning but then one day after dropping ds1 off I have to stop for petrol then that's when it's likely to happen.

Thanks for the link.

I found this really interesting.

“The quality of prior parental care seems to be irrelevant,” he said. “The important factors that keep showing up involve a combination of stress, emotion, lack of sleep and change in routine, where the basal ganglia is trying to do what it’s supposed to do, and the conscious mind is too weakened to resist. What happens is that the memory circuits in a vulnerable hippocampus literally get overwritten, like with a computer program. Unless the memory circuit is rebooted such as if the child cries, or, you know, if the wife mentions the child in the back it can entirely disappear.”

This happens to be in other ways, like driving whilst thinking of other things and turning left on a road I know has a dead end and ANPR cameras. as the article says, the conscious mind can be too weak to resist.

I can imagine this happening.

Agreed. Same here. I don't want to reread but I think it references the father who went to his office and kept on switching his car alarm off. That one stuck with me the most. I do believe it can happen, innocently.
This case is another ball game though, what a nightmare

Me too. Actually people sharing different stories adds context. We see that it's not so uncommon and get multiple perspectives. Info about what is going on in our brains in these different scenarios and that we could also fall victim to a random moment of inattention and taking measures like leaving purse or something essential in the back of the car is very interesting and can help us avoid falling into such a tragic scenario.

I get that people might find it distasteful but these threads will always offend some, however when objectors are still around pages later I don't have any sympathy, because clearly they are enjoying reading it. Including the so-called 'ghoulish' bits instead of just hopping over that post.

I agree it's good to know these things. I had no idea children could drown in a lavatory or a bucket and am bloody pleased to now be aware!

Dads are almost three times more likely than mothers to leave a child alone in a parked car.

Neither do I, but thinking of a motive for it and I'm not sure what you could reasonably conclude, but it just doesn't sit right at all.

It puts the absolute fear in me too.

More than once over the years I've taken the wrong turning going 'home' and been on the way to a house I don't live at any more in a neighbouring village before I think 'where am I going?!'

DD once scared the crap out of me by speaking suddenly while I was stopped at traffic lights on the way home from nursery thinking about what we had in the freezer for tea. Totally forgot she was there for a minute. The fear I felt was that I'd forgotten, not that she made me jump.

@GrannyAchingsShepherdsHut yes, I need to actively tell myself to not be on auto-pilot sometimes.

That moment with your dd must have been scary.

I think it’s good to have fear of what could happen, it keeps us safe to a certain extent.

There is a really good book by Edel Coffey called breaking point in this very subject m.

We see that it's not so uncommon and get multiple perspectives. Info about what is going on in our brains in these different scenarios and that we could also fall victim to a random moment of inattention

Yes! I first read the WP article back in 2009, before my children were even born, and I believe it made me a better parent (DD abandoned at after school club aside…) because it made me realise that these mistakes could be made by even conscientious and loving parents, not just bad and neglectful ones. Just reading typical newspaper reports with the basic facts about the cases would have given me the opposite view.

The 'how' of kids being forgotten and left in hot cars is pretty well studied.

Its much more likely to happen with someone who is not the childs usual carer, not the person normally transporting the child somewhere, where there is a change of normal routine - so yes, the fact they are in charge of this child has completely left their mind briefly.

So a father who doesn't normally drop the kid off at daycare before heading to work, a grandma who doesn't normally have the kid, has taken them out to the supermarket...

It's way more common in situations where the kid is liable to fall asleep - so the early morning, after a day of trailing around after an adult doing their regular chores/errands -and of course, kid is in the back, invisible if the driver doesn't fully turn around and look.

It's pretty rare that this happens because a child has intentionally been left in the car 'whilst I just do xyz' - (the way many dogs die in hot cars).

The fact that we (particularly drivers) tend to go into an 'auto-pilot' mode and are functioning on a much less concious level than many realise when doing routine things is key too. There have been a lot of studies on this, and it is quite shocking how very unaware people are on their daily commute to work, and im not sure it actually occurs anywhere outside the 'get in the car - drive x route - arrive at work and wake up properly' context. People tend not to notice anything that doesn't actively impede that normal routine (so they would notice a road accident that stopped traffic, they probably would not notice a herd of elephants at the side of the road all dancing the can-can, as long as it doesn't stop the traffic and jolt them out of their auto-pilot.)

Humans are very routine creatures and we also see people forgetting children when they've just had a baby and are not used to taking a baby with them to places - this accounts for a lot of the 'I forgot to get the (sleeping) baby out of the car at the supermarket and also the less remarkable as less dangerous instances where people have forgotten to put the kid BACK in the car, having parked a pram somewhere in store and moved away to get something.

In the days when people left prams/pushchairs outside stores, forgetting to collect the baby for the walk home was not at all uncommon in new parents!

There are lots of schemes and gadgets and protocols you can adopt to ensure it doesn't happen - these tend to be exactly the sorts of things new mums post about on MN, that they want to do, do themselves but MIL or FIL or their own parents refuse to do because they're being 'PFB' about it or they're being over dramatic. Unfortunately the sort of person who pooh-poohs a 'check the back seat before you leave the car' routine, who thinks 'it'll never happen to me' is exactly the sort of person who can end up leaving a kid in a car to boil to death!

Do you remember the helicopter one, the child ran up to the dad as he exited the helicopter and the dad
held the child up playfully but not remembering the blades were still spinning.

So what happens when it is a parent, which is more likely tbh.