As I came out of Circuit City yesterday afternoon, there were cops, fire dept and paramedics all over the place. An officer came up asking if I owned a Ford sedan, I told him no, and showed him the truck I drive. Looking towards a fast-food place, I saw emergency people holding and examining a toddler no more than 1 1/2 years old. You could tell the child was in severe distress, the paramedics were cracking and applying cold packs to get her temp down. She looked alert, and responding.
Yep, another stupid adult leaving a child in a locked car in the middle of the afternoon. The temp outside was 100. This is the first time I've ever witnessed this, and became physically ill. I became so angry, it took me a while to calm down.
It reminds me when I was doing my clinical for my EMT in an emergency room years ago. The mother came in with a baby who was bruised and having trouble breathing. The cops came, and the mother admitted her boyfriend did it. Soon after, the boyfriend came in demanding to see the child. I started after him, and the cops had to restrain me, and get the guy out fast. The cops understood my feelings, but had to keep me down to protect me. I did get some satisfaction when I saw the cops trying to help the guy in the car, and just couldn't seem to get his head down far enough and kept hitting his head trying to get in. :chuckle
When this happened last summer my dh thought it would be a good idea to put something in the front seat of your car or van to remind you there is a child in the back seat...such as the diaper bag or blankie.
I've been kinda pushing an idea long the same lines...only I suggest that the parent put their purse/briefcase/laptop bag in the backseat with the baby. Either idea works to help with forgetfulness...sadly though, it does nothing for ignorance.
This may be true in your local area, but the stories that I have seen on the news about these tragedies were perpetrated by professional-types. I remember that one was a doctor and another was a business owner, and puggy232 in this thread reported that she heard about this being done by a pediatrician. In these other cases, leaving kids behind to die were NOT limited to low-income or non-educated people.
Add managing director of a real estate consulting firm to your list. Another child died in a hot car, only a block away from my home just this past Tuesday:
I have a story to tell...My son is 15yrs old and is autistic...He rides the school bus to school..They pick him up and drop him off at the house..Well one more the bus was late, apparently it was a sub driver...he picked him up late around 7:50am which school starts at 7:45am...The HS is about 5 mins away...I got a call around 8:30am from his teacher saying he's not at school yet...Which of course I thought was weird...I told her the bus picked him up, so she said she would call me when he arrives...About 5-10 mins later I get a call from the dispatcher at transportation telling me my son fell asleep and the bus driver didn't notice him and that he's taking him back to school now...He arrived around 9:00am...Just so you know, my son rides on the lil short bus so there's only about 4-5 rows..How could he of missed him???...So my understanding that I got from his teacher and aids is that the school bus driver picked him up around 12:10pm to bring him home from school...Well I work 9am to 6pm....So when I got home around 6:10pm, I noticed my son wasn't in my room or his...HE NEVER GOT DROPPED OFF!!!...So of course I'm scared now...My mom called 911...I decided to drive down to the bus yard...I get there and park my car and start yelling my son's name at the lil short buses and guess what???...MY SON POPPED HIS HEAD UP!!!...OMG, my son was in a hot school bus for about 6 1/2 hrs...I found him around 6:50pm...They are lucky my son was alive...He could of easily died of a heat stroke, wondered off and got lost, or kidnapped, etc...He forgot my son twice!!!!...I just had to share my story...I don't know whats going on with the bus driver but I'm hoping he's fired and to never drive any type of transportation...He has no idea, cause my son can't communicate...I don't know what was going on in my son's head...No food, no water, no bathroom....And to top it off, no one has said they were sorry to me until almost 2 wks later after the incident...
Gosh - how horrid. We unfortunately have had the same scenario in our area a few times. Where does your son go after school usually? Respite care? Some special type of day care? So glad he is okay....
little lady, i am so sorry for this horrid instance that happen not once but twice with same driver
i believer that the walk behind requirement should be law and that the drivers need to be held responsibile for the harm that could have occured because of this
littllady72 - What you described sounds severely negligent to me. If I were you, I would be making a hell of a lot of noise. That should never happen. Go before your PTA and tell them what happened. Rally them to get behind you in insisting that it become school policy for drivers to do a walk up and down the bus for the purpose of ensuring that no child gets left behind. (And in a five seat bus that should take a total of about 10 seconds.)
I heard of this exact same thing happening a few years back with a resident of a senior citizens home who had gone on some sort of field trip. A disabled woman was forgotten on the bus for about 8 hours. She was eventually discovered when officials at the home called to find out why she had never been returned. She was rather dehydrated, but otherwise all right.
I also had an experience as an EMT where a mentally disabled teenage girl was let off the bus in the wrong spot. She wandered around and around for hours and finally, after dark, someone took notice and called 911. We were summoned because the temperatures outside were below freezing and we had to get her to the hospital to be treated for severe hypothermia.
My sister has ADD, and I could see her leaving her kids in the car without realizing it. When her first child was about 2 months old, she had just finished shopping, set her son on top of the car in his carrier, then loaded all her groceries. She sat down and started the engine before she realized she had forgot to put the baby in the car! Thank god she didn't drive off and forget him.
Specializes in icu, er, transplant, case management, ps.
I have read this thread with interest, given I live in Florida and have three grandchildren. Some of the responses sound like Nancy Grace wannabees. Other have had terrible experiences. And still others have taken a rather neutral stance. I go with the neutral stance. Not all ways transporting kids can leave to a parent forgetting the child is there. Does this make him an evil wrong doer, who deserves to go to prison for the rest of his/her life? I think not. Too many of these children are left in a car because they have fallen a sleep and the parent doesn't remember they are in the back sit because they don't usually transport them. Others happen because a parent thinks they will only be gone a minute, that turns into five or ten. And a good number don't realize just how fast a car can warm up.
Most parents will punish themselves much more then we can ever punish them. Unless it can be proven it was an intentional act, we can only assume it was a terrible accident.
I have a story to tell...My son is 15yrs old and is autistic...He rides the school bus to school..They pick him up and drop him off at the house..Well one more the bus was late, apparently it was a sub driver...he picked him up late around 7:50am which school starts at 7:45am...The HS is about 5 mins away...I got a call around 8:30am from his teacher saying he's not at school yet...Which of course I thought was weird...I told her the bus picked him up, so she said she would call me when he arrives...About 5-10 mins later I get a call from the dispatcher at transportation telling me my son fell asleep and the bus driver didn't notice him and that he's taking him back to school now...He arrived around 9:00am...Just so you know, my son rides on the lil short bus so there's only about 4-5 rows..How could he of missed him???...So my understanding that I got from his teacher and aids is that the school bus driver picked him up around 12:10pm to bring him home from school...Well I work 9am to 6pm....So when I got home around 6:10pm, I noticed my son wasn't in my room or his...HE NEVER GOT DROPPED OFF!!!...So of course I'm scared now...My mom called 911...I decided to drive down to the bus yard...I get there and park my car and start yelling my son's name at the lil short buses and guess what???...MY SON POPPED HIS HEAD UP!!!...OMG, my son was in a hot school bus for about 6 1/2 hrs...I found him around 6:50pm...They are lucky my son was alive...He could of easily died of a heat stroke, wondered off and got lost, or kidnapped, etc...He forgot my son twice!!!!...I just had to share my story...I don't know whats going on with the bus driver but I'm hoping he's fired and to never drive any type of transportation...He has no idea, cause my son can't communicate...I don't know what was going on in my son's head...No food, no water, no bathroom....And to top it off, no one has said they were sorry to me until almost 2 wks later after the incident...
First off ler me say I think alot of people in the US are sue happy and I think there have been some pretty stupic and just plain headline lawsuits. But in your case I would have talked to a laywer the very next morning. If it had just happened the 1st time I can call it an accident, but 2 times in one day no that is not acceptable that is negligence to me.
Well I spoke with a lawyer and he said take him to a doc to get checked up. Well since he was fine from what his doc said, the lawyer says we basically have no case since no harm was done. He has to show some kind of harm to have a case. Yes I'm ******! We even put this on the news and nothing. Its like no one cares. It would probably be different if my son could talk about it.
.thumb.jpg.421493329dd1f136a4222fe8e9399213.jpg){kind=small}
zamboni
189 Posts
I've been kinda pushing an idea long the same lines...only I suggest that the parent put their purse/briefcase/laptop bag in the backseat with the baby. Either idea works to help with forgetfulness...sadly though, it does nothing for ignorance.