Vent: I absolutely HATE stupidity! Not ignorance.....STUPIDITY!!

[TazziRN]

5-month-old baby sent from the clinic 10 miles away for a respiratory workup. Baby arrived in an infant carrier with a heavy furry blanket over him. Remove that blanket and find Baby resting on top of another one....with the seat's safety straps under that! After eval and treatment, as part of his discharge, I spoke with mom via an interpreter about the carrier and the child safety seat law. First the mom lies and says that she put the blanket under Baby when they got to the hospital. I confronted her on that and she just laughed. When I asked her if she knew what the law was, she was able to recite it. Her brother drove her and Baby to the ER and he tried to excuse it by saying "I'm a very safe driver."

I am so tired of the stupidity, and stupidity is just what it is. Just around Thanksgiving there was an SUV rollover, with a 2-month-old ejected and killed. Two older kids in the car were badly injured, as well as the grandma. The baby's mom was driving down the freeway, Grandma was in the back seat changing baby's diaper, and the two older kids were in seats but improperly restrained.

There is no excuse for this....in this county all medicaid moms who get prenatal care go through a program and get free strollers and corificeats, and they're taught how to use those corificeats.

How many more children have to die before this stops???

[bethin]

I was driving an ambulance one day, looked in the car to my left and saw a woman BREASTFEEDING a baby!!!!!!!!!...:trout: At the next redlight I rolled my window down and "complimented" her on the "airbag" she held in her arms. She got angry...I got called into the office:uhoh3:

Some folks have no common sense...But then, common sense is not so common anymore.

I did something like this years ago before I was even in nursing. My roommate and I were stopped in traffic in the middle of summer. Had our windows down and the car next to us had their windows down. I look over and see a toddler bouncing around in the car. We started moving (slowly) and I said "where's you seatbelt?". Dad turned very red in the face and sped up.

I can (almost) understand an adult choosing not to wear their seatbelts, but minors don't get that choice. I'm tempted to use my cell phone everytime I see a child unrestrained. No matter how good of a driver you are, there are millions of idiots on the road beside you. In my quaint little hometown, there's signs that say "Please Drive Slowly, We Love Our Children." Well, that's nice - except I routinely get stuck behind a SUV that's going 45 in a 30 and I can obviously see kids switching btw the front and back seat and throwing soccer balls around. Wait, YOU want me to be careful for your children, but you don't want to be careful for the sake of your kids? Doesn't make sense.

I drove with my twin nieces (2yrs) in the back for the first time. I drove barely the speed limit. Every turn and curve I was careful. I had some super precious luggage in the backseat. And yes, I had them seatbelted in properly.

[ktwlpn, LPN]

I said "medicaid moms" because in this county they get detailed instructions in car seat safety as part of their prenatal care. I have private insurance and was religious about my prenatal care, yet our instruction was reading the booklet that came with the seat. I am not saying that medicaid moms are bad moms, I just meant that they are given instructions on baby and child safety seats that the rest of us are not, so there is absolutely no excuse for not using the seats properly. Read my original post again, especially the sentence about medicaid moms.

I understand the post to be a diatribe against stupid "medicaid moms" in general.I don't see how it can be taken any other way.Read mine again-My point is only that "stupid" cuts through all socio-ecomomic backrounds and as long as the death of a child is considered "acceptable loss" then stupid parents will not be punished and this behavior will continue....Getting 1 to 1 instruction regarding childcare is no guarantee that the knowledge gathered will be retained and applied-obviously...We debated here a few years ago about a case outside of Philadelphia -2 young children were left outside with a running riding mower.....The 7 yr old hopped on and killed his 2 yr old sister.The parents were DEVASTATED--mom was at Kmart and dad LEFT THE 2 KIDS OUT THERE ALONE WITH A RUNNING RIDING MOWER..There was no prosecution.It's murder-pure and simple-and that's my point..That's what it will take for this type of negligent behavior to stop-each and every time a child is killed through the stupiditity of a parent that parent needs to be prosecuted for murder.No matter what color their skin or how much money they make there SHOULD BE NO EXCUSES...

[hogan4736, BSN, RN]

It goes on and on-and the way the parents is treated by the media correlates directly with their class...Upper class white mom can leave her baby in the back of her SUV while she is working all day -essentially roasting the baby- and "it's such a horrible tragedy-a mistake" Let it be a young black mother on food stamps and the media calls for prosecution....And time after time no one is prosecuted-as if the hurt the parents suffer mitigates the fact that a baby was killed....Getting behind the wheel drunk and killing someone and killing a child because you forgot it was in the car in high summer should both be murder,imho...

white professional citizen...

arrested...

Neighbors baffled after mom leaves son in hot car

why bring race into this?

this happens every summer in Phoenix...

plenty of BAD press for all...

[TazziRN, RN]

Please tell me where and when I said medicaid moms are stupid?

[gonzo1, ASN, RN]

I wish there was mandatory helmet laws in all states. I always ride with a full face helmet but everyone else in my family refuses to wear one unless traveling cross country into states where you have to. Needless to say, I like the cross country trips the best because there is no room on bike to store helmet so it is always worn.

No matter how much preaching I do about the cycle accidents that come into my ER, the husband and son won't listen and wear a helmet. Very sad.

[burn out]

I don't quite understand what medicaid has to do with it..maybe these people don't receive it. I guess stupidity comes in all income level not just for the poor.

[morte, LPN, LVN]

I understand the post to be a diatribe against stupid "medicaid moms" in general.I don't see how it can be taken any other way.Read mine again-My point is only that "stupid" cuts through all socio-ecomomic backrounds and as long as the death of a child is considered "acceptable loss" then stupid parents will not be punished and this behavior will continue....Getting 1 to 1 instruction regarding childcare is no guarantee that the knowledge gathered will be retained and applied-obviously...We debated here a few years ago about a case outside of Philadelphia -2 young children were left outside with a running riding mower.....The 7 yr old hopped on and killed his 2 yr old sister.The parents were DEVASTATED--mom was at Kmart and dad LEFT THE 2 KIDS OUT THERE ALONE WITH A RUNNING RIDING MOWER..There was no prosecution.It's murder-pure and simple-and that's my point..That's what it will take for this type of negligent behavior to stop-each and every time a child is killed through the stupiditity of a parent that parent needs to be prosecuted for murder.No matter what color their skin or how much money they make there SHOULD BE NO EXCUSES...

kt....i think YOU are reading into th op's post to suit your own biases...read literally there is NO inference of generalized stupidity.......

[Jelli_Belli]

On the subject of stupidity and children in cars... Parents who smoke with their children in the car with them enrage me:angryfire ! It bothers me even more than unrestrained kids in a car. I just cringe when I see a little kid strapped in a car seat in the back of a car while Mom is puffing a Newport with only a little sliver of driver's side window down for ventilation. We all know smoking and second hand smoke is harmful, there is just no excuse.

The other day I stopped for gas and when I pulled in there was a car with, I am assuming, a Mom and Dad smoking in front seats and two toddlers and a 4 year old in the back. The Mom was ahead of me in line in the store and I guess she must have known the cashier because when the cashier asked her how her kids were she said, "They have been sick for two weeks now, they have colds and are coughing up a storm." At this point I just could not hold my tounge any longer and told her "I know this is none of my business, and I am only mentioning it because you may not know, but having your children cooped up in a car and in the house with you while you smoke can greatly attribute to theie respiratory illness and can cause further damage, possibly leading to asthma and other problems."

Needless to say, she did have a great epiphany right there in the store and vow to never harm her kids like that again. In fact she bought a carton of cigarettes, looked me directly in the eye on her way out the door, lit a cigarette, and walked back to her car.

Sigh, sometimes I wish people needed a license to breed.

[tvccrn, ASN, RN]

I am all for banning cell phone use in the car. To me, regulation of what people goes too far, because really, as long as one eats an otherwise healthy diet, an occasional splurge at McDonald's can't kill them. One trip in the car without the seatbelt can.

I know you're not the one who mentioned government overstepping its bounds, but I'm going to combine my thoughts about that into this post. If the government can license drivers, require car registration, and maintain the roads (I know they don't always do a great job in this regard, but it is their charge), then IMHO they can always mandate safety requirements within that car.

In New York state, it's a violation for using the cell phone while driving and you CAN be stop for that alone. I think it shoukld be the law in every state. And don't think that the hands-free option is any better. It's just as distracting as holding the phone to your ear.

tvccrn

[tvccrn, ASN, RN]

Pets also should secured in the car. I know of one wreck where the dog was jumping from seat to seat. The driver was distracted and he pulled out in front of a semi. Seven lives were lost. The youngest was 1 year old. The family was moving to another state to begin a new life.

Another instance involved a dog riding loose in the back of a pick-up with no tail gate. The driver slammed on the brakes. The dog flew out of the truck and landed on the hood of the vehicle following behind. The lab broke the windshield upon impact. Thankfully no one (including the dog) was hurt.

There have also been cases where the cat or small dog has gotten tangled up in the gas and/or brake pedal and caused a wreck or a near miss.

Treat the pets like childern in the car----restrain them.

Fuzzy

So very true. Thank you for reminding us that it isn't just humans that are in danger. The animals have to rely on us to keep them safe and a lot of people do a very poor job at it.

tvccrn

[tvccrn, ASN, RN]

I have had a family member killed by not wearing a seatbelt and one killed while riding in the back of a truck.

Funny thing is, the one not wearing a seatbelt....he was usually a fanatic about wearing it, but was only going to the store down the street so he didn't think it was necessary. The restrained driver walked away with only bruises.

In the early 1970's, my cousin was sitting in the back of a truck and fell out when the truck turned a corner. By the police estimates that match the witnesses statements...the truck was doing about 10 miles an hour. So speed doesn't always factor in. From then on, none of the kids in our family was allowed in the back of the trucks.

tvccrn

[blueberrybon]

A previous poster already mentioned this to some extent, but consumer reports recently did a test on car seats. The results were horrible. For those who want to know if their car seats are safe or not, here is the site:

ConsumerReports.org - Infant car seats 2/07: Safety alert, European models, Ratings

direct quote from that site:

"Of 12 infant seats we tested, only 2 performed well: the Baby Trend Flex-Loc and the Graco SnugRide with EPS. "

Wow...

Blue