Fatal Distraction: Forgetting a Child in the Backseat of a Car Is it a Horrifying Mistake? Is It a Crime? (1 Viewer)

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DCSaints_Fan said:
Was that the case of the father in Virginia who had like 10 kids and told one of his kids to get the baby out?
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That happened in Tennessee. He was their only kid. In a nutshell, small business owners each with separate ventures, one hectic day, happened to meet back at home one mid morning, the guy had the baby in his car, ran into the house to get something, heard the woman say "I'll take the baby" as she was leaving. So he went about his business thinking she had the baby.

They were acquaintances through a good friend of mine at the time, who was the nephew of the guy. Nice people. They didn't want their baby to spend his baby/toddler years with a babysitter, so he was with at least one of them all the time.
 
mattgdg said:
How come you never hear about kids freezing to death in cars during the winter? Serious question.
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On a 32 degree day with sun, the temp inside a car will be a comfortable 74 F within 30 minutes


Inside Car Temperature Calculator | Good Calculators

This car temperature calculator allows you to determine the temperature in the interior of a car that is parked in direct sunlight. It demonstrates the speed at which the interior temperature of a car can increase; something that is not only a concern during summer but throughout the year
goodcalculators.com goodcalculators.com
 
Optimus Prime said:
Excellent article from the Washington Post from a few years ago.

Wanted to post in response to the thread about the woman who left her kids in the car and a reminder of how easily it can turn tragic.
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............The charge in the courtroom was manslaughter, brought by the Commonwealth of Virginia. No significant facts were in dispute. Miles Harrison, 49, was an amiable person, a diligent businessman and a doting, conscientious father until the day last summer -- beset by problems at work, making call after call on his cellphone -- he forgot to drop his son, Chase, at day care. The toddler slowly sweltered to death, strapped into a car seat for nearly nine hours in an office parking lot in Herndon in the blistering heat of July.

It was an inexplicable, inexcusable mistake, but was it a crime? That was the question for a judge to decide.............

"Death by hyperthermia" is the official designation. When it happens to young children, the facts are often the same: An otherwise loving and attentive parent one day gets busy, or distracted, or upset, or confused by a change in his or her daily routine, and just... forgets a child is in the car. It happens that way somewhere in the United States 15 to 25 times a year, parceled out through the spring, summer and early fall. The season is almost upon us.

Two decades ago, this was relatively rare. But in the early 1990s, car-safety experts declared that passenger-side front airbags could kill children, and they recommended that child seats be moved to the back of the car; then, for even more safety for the very young, that the baby seats be pivoted to face the rear. If few foresaw the tragic consequence of the lessened visibility of the child . . . well, who can blame them? What kind of person forgets a baby?

The wealthy do, it turns out. And the poor, and the middle class. Parents of all ages and ethnicities do it. Mothers are just as likely to do it as fathers. It happens to the chronically absent-minded and to the fanatically organized, to the college-educated and to the marginally literate. In the last 10 years, it has happened to a dentist. A postal clerk. A social worker. A police officer. An accountant. A soldier. A paralegal. An electrician. A Protestant clergyman. A rabbinical student. A nurse. A construction worker. An assistant principal. It happened to a mental health counselor, a college professor and a pizza chef. It happened to a pediatrician. It happened to a rocket scientist................


Each instance has its own macabre signature. One father had parked his car next to the grounds of a county fair; as he discovered his son's body, a calliope tootled merrily beside him. Another man, wanting to end things quickly, tried to wrestle a gun from a police officer at the scene. Several people -- including Mary Parks of Blacksburg -- have driven from their workplace to the day-care center to pick up the child they'd thought they'd dropped off, never noticing the corpse in the back seat.

Then there is the Chattanooga, Tenn., business executive who must live with this: His motion-detector car alarm went off, three separate times, out there in the broiling sun. But when he looked out, he couldn't see anyone tampering with the car. So he remotely deactivated the alarm and went calmly back to work............


Fatal Distraction: Forgetting a Child in the Backseat of a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime?
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If I left my child in the car and they dies as a result, I could honestly care less what happens to me because my life would be over at that point. There is nothing the state can do to punish a parent worse than that person living the rest of their life knowing they killed their child. Jail time just seems like overkill, but this is America and our answer is to jail everyone for everything.
 
MLU said:
If I left my child in the car and they dies as a result, I could honestly care less what happens to me because my life would be over at that point. There is nothing the state can do to punish a parent worse than that person living the rest of their life knowing they killed their child.
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No question. If I lost one of my little girls because I forgot them in the car then that's it. There would be no punishment worse than what I'd put myself through every second of every day.

I can't imagine how hard that must be for the parents. To think about how much suffering the child went through before they finally succumbed. That would be hard to live with.

Yes it's a crime so there has to be some sort of legal repercussions but it seems like kicking a dog that has just been ran over by a truck. And it's not really a deterrent. No parent is going to say, "I better not forget my kid in the car because I don't want to go to jail."
 
I couldn't live with myself. Honestly, nothing a jury could do to me at that point.
 
I can totally understand it.

I used to be one of those people that waited till the last minute to leave the house. I'm also the type that gets laser focused on what's in front of me, to the point where I almost develop tunnel vision to everything else around me. I used to have about an 8 or 9 mile drive to work that in Lafayette morning traffic takes about 45mins. At the time, our first was about 6 or 8 months. We were using a lady who watched children in her home in the River's Bend area, so regardless of if I was dropping him off or not, I was taking Camellia to go to work. One day, I was driving to work, totally focused on what was being said on the talk show I listened to in the morning and cursing the traffic and thinking about the sheetstorm that was waiting for me at work during the commercials. Drove right past the turn to go to the sitter's house and kept on driving.

I worked out by Le Triomphe, off Hwy 90, at the time. I got all the way to 90 on the Ambassador Caffery Extension. When I was making the right hand turn I happened to glance back to make sure someone wasn't coming up too close on the inside lane and noticed my son was still in the backseat.

My heart sunk and my stomach started rolling like a dryer. I immediately broke out into a cold sweat and almost had to pull over to throw up. I couldn't believe it. I was almost one of those guys you hear hear about on the radio, read about in the newspaper. It SCARED THE sheet OUT OF ME!!!

I'm not a bad person. I don't steal. I don't cheat on my wife. I don't intentionally hurt others. I work hard and sometimes get laser focused on things and become completely oblivious to my periphery. But if I had made the terrible mistake of continuing on to work without noticing that my son was still in the truck and god forbid, the worst happened, should I have been imprisoned for manslaughter??

Maybe. I honestly don't know. I do know that prison would not have been able to punish me as severely as I would have punished myself.

Now, if I had gone to the local gas station casino, or the club, or gone get high in some crack den and the worst happened? For sure. But for a man, or woman, who makes a simple, tragic mistake to be sent to prison? I think there should be some level of prosecutorial discretion allowed depending on the circumstances of the case.

I still look back and check the back seat of the vehicle everytime I drive past that turn on Camellia....
 
There was a guy in Ocean Springs several years ago that left his little girl in their car. Apparently he didn't normally take her to daycare, but for some reason he was supposed to that day and forgot she was back there. We all can say that we would never forget our child in the car, but think how many times you've gotten in the car headed to work and you're just on auto-pilot. I've left the house and then pulled into the parking lot at work and didn't really remember the drive in. You get into habits, get into routines and it happens. I cannot imagine how devastated one might feel and I have kids of my own.
 
I know this happens. Can’t think of much more horrifying. As a father of two. When they were litttle. I can easily see how someone could do this. For example a dad who normally brings the older kids to school. Mom usually brings the baby to daycare. One day for some reason dad has to bring the baby to daycare as well as drop the older kids off at school. Takes off. Drops the kids off at school like he always does. Then heads straight to work like he always does. Forgetting the sleeping baby in the back. A horrifying accident. I could easily see myself do. Now a days I drive a car. That magically knows when I put something in the back seat and alerts me when I turn off the car to check the back seat. On the one hand I think it’s dumb. On the other hand if it saves a single life. Why not.
 
Can you imagine how many psychos would be ‘forgetting’ their children in the car if there were no legal consequences?
 

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