You FORGOT Your Child was in the Backseat?
You FORGOT Your Child was in the Backseat?
Although I have wondered in the past “what is wrong with our world?” I am not one to write about things in the news that I hear or read, because well, the world is a crazy place anymore, and what does one expect? One more common issue though I keep hearing is about people leaving their baby, a child in parked cars because they “forgot” them. This then leads (especially in summer) to babies/children dying from heatstroke.
I cannot believe that someone would “just forget” that they put their baby in their car seat between leaving their start point and arriving to their destination. As a society, have people become that preoccupied that they just “forget”? I just can’t believe that this is an issue. I have left the house and forgotten my grocery list, or locked my keys in the car–but forgotten that I brought my child with me?? Never. Anymore (and for many years now), an infant car seat does face them away from the driver. Yet an infant car seat isn’t one that just sits in the car as a toddler car seat does. You have to “put IN the car seat with the baby in it because anymore they detach from a stroller or have a base they are secured into. Even then if your infant car seat is already in the car; you have to carry the baby out and place them in there. Or a front-facing child’s car seat, don’t you look in your rearview mirror? Or check to see if they have fallen asleep?
Reenactments Have Been Performed
After these different situations have occurred, there has been reenactments of the ‘same’ conditions. Below is a reenactment, this child was not harmed but it is a moving example, please take the 5 minutes to watch.
On average, 38 children die in hot cars each year from heat-related deaths after being trapped inside motor vehicles. Even the best of parents or caregivers can unknowingly leave a sleeping baby in a car; and the end result can be injury or even death. (taken from KidsandCars.Org ) .
This number also seems to include children that have gotten into a car without a parent being aware (ie. while the car is parked in the driveway I assume.) They also have even shown on the news and online “how to help you remember your child or that you have taken a child with you”, SERIOUSLY? Are we that preoccupied that we really forget? I have seen tips from putting your shoe under the car seat so that you have to get it before you go into the store-this way you don’t forget your child- to putting your purse, briefcase, ‘something important’ in the backseat. Isn’t the fact that you put your child in the backseat important enough to not forget?
I also found this article from USAToday.com :
Often the death comes when a parent breaks a routine, safety experts say.
For Reginald McKinnon of Cape Coral, Fla., it was picking up his daughter Payton from day care and taking her to the doctor. After the appointment he put her in the rear-facing car seat in the back seat and headed back to work.
He spent the day there not realizing his 17-month-old was still in the back seat. When he opened the door to his SUV to go home, Payton was dead, still strapped into her seat.
McKinnon was sentenced to five years of probation and community service for Payton’s March 2010 death. He is dedicated to honoring Payton’s memory by educating parents and friends about the risk of hyperthermia when children are left in cars.
In Phoenix, Daniel Bryant Gray, 33, was sentenced June 20 to four years in prison followed with seven years probation after he left his 3-month-old son, Jamison, last year in a car parked outside a bar where Gray worked.
JUNE 25: Police press murder case in Ga. toddler’s hot-car death
JUNE 20: Fla. father arrested after daughter dies in hot carThe day before in Murfreesboro, Tenn., Samantha Harper pleaded guilty to two counts of attempted aggravated child neglect in the hot-car deaths of her two 2-year-old, Savannah Marise, and 3-year-old, Daniel Marise. She was sentenced to 16 years in jail and will have to serve eight years before being eligible for probation.
The same day in Marietta, Ga., Justin Ross Harris, 33, was booked on murder charges after he told investigators that he forgot to drop his son at day care and went to work instead. On his drive home, he discovered that his 22-month-old son, Cooper, had died in the back seat.
And Steven Lillie, 31, was arrested June 20, four days after his 9-month-old daughter, Anna Marie Lillie, died after being left in a hot pickup truck in Rockledge, Fla.
What will work is some kind of system that won’t fail to remind a person a child is in the back seat.
In 2012 the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration published a report, “Reducing the Potential for Heat Stroke to Children in Parked Motor Vehicles: Evaluation of Reminder Technology.” It found reminder and detection devices to be unreliable and required too much effort from caregivers for them to operate.
Putting something on the back seat as a reminder isn’t a new idea. Safety groups have been pushing it for years telling people to put something you will need when you reach your destination.
You may not always have your laptop, your purse, or your cellphone. But you do always have a shoe.
So when you put your kid in the back, put your left shoe back there, too.
I guess I am just baffled. It is bad enough that babies and children are brought into this world and can be abused, neglected and abandoned. People will say, well what do you expect… (insert their excuse or reasonings here). But to have to have an article of what things to leave in your backseat so as to not forget you put your child back there? I find this not only unbelievable but an outrage. Maybe instead of putting your shoe in the backseat so you don’t forget your child is back there—you should just remember that YES, you put your child back there, now there’s an idea.
Last summer we had a black car, it didn’t have air conditioning and there were many times I found myself waiting in it for my daughter to get out of school, my husband to get out of work, etc. I SAT in that car, with the windows down, with sweat running down my face. The windows were down and I felt fatigued, and nauseous at times. I can’t imagine having left my granddaughter in there, or I am sorry, FORGETTING that she was in there with the windows rolled up.
I also have to mention that some of these car seat cases have actually led to a parent purposely leaving their child in the closed up, heated vehicle on purpose. They then use the excuse that they ‘forgot’.
Maybe I am just out of touch because my kids are young adults and can get themselves out. Although I am also a grandma and not once have I forgotten that my granddaughter was in the backseat in her car seat. I just don’t see how this is so common and that there are sites on ‘how to not forget your child is in the backseat’. What are your thoughts?
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