11 month old baby girl in Florida dies after being left in the car

[malaise]

http://www.local10.com/news/11-month-old-girl-dies-after-left-in-van-in-hialeah
<snip>
An 11-month-old girl has died after she was found in her parents' parked van in Hialeah, authorities said.

Sky 10 was above a home near Northwest 138th Street and 86th Terrace and saw several police cars parked outside.

A Hialeah Fire Department representative said paramedics were called to the home at 4:10 p.m. and were working to resuscitate the toddler as she was taken to Palmetto General Hospital.

She was pronounced dead a short time later.

It's unclear how long the girl was inside the van, but Hialeah police Sgt. Carl Zogby said she was possibly in there for several hours with the engine turned off.

Hialeah police said the investigation is ongoing.

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How did they leave the baby in the car at their home??

[rjsquirrel]

1. Always incomprehensible to me as a parent

And yet people really do forget their babies.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. This might explain how that can happen:

http://archive.pulitzer.org/works/2010-Feature-Writing

[malaise]

4. Will finish reading in the morning

I don't know if it's a crime but it's way too sad

[bjo59]

6. Thanks for this article.

Never thought about the more horrific consequences of laws that put small children in the back seat with the child seat facing backward.

[prayin4rain]

16. Ugh, painful to read.

I have a three month old right now and reading that was heartbreaking. Poor parents, poor kids, just all around painful.

[snooper2]

17. or meth...

[DawgHouse]

19. Thanks for sharing.

[HubertHeaver]

3. In a rear-ward facing car seat.

If the baby is quiet, it is easy to forget the baby is back there.

[valerief]

5. I was going to post that it won't be long before the neglect-the-baby apologists

start posting, but I see one already has.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

7. Read the article, please.

It explains how the very fallible human mind operates and how it is possible for anyone (including you) to do this. It's not an apology but an explanation.

These comments [like we will soon see on DU] were typical of many others, and they are typical of what happens again and again, year after year in community after community, when these cases arise. A substantial proportion of the public reacts not merely with anger, but with frothing vitriol.

Ed Hickling believes he knows why. Hickling is a clinical psychologist from Albany, N.Y., who has studied the effects of fatal auto accidents on the drivers who survive them. He says these people are often judged with disproportionate harshness by the public, even when it was clearly an accident, and even when it was indisputably not their fault.

Humans, Hickling said, have a fundamental need to create and maintain a narrative for their lives in which the universe is not implacable and heartless, that terrible things do not happen at random, and that catastrophe can be avoided if you are vigilant and responsible.

In hyperthermia cases, he believes, the parents are demonized for much the same reasons. "We are vulnerable, but we don't want to be reminded of that. We want to believe that the world is understandable and controllable and unthreatening, that if we follow the rules, we'll be okay. So, when this kind of thing happens to other people, we need to put them in a different category from us. We don't want to resemble them, and the fact that we might is too terrifying to deal with. So, they have to be monsters."

http://archive.pulitzer.org/works/2010-Feature-Writing

[Lancero]

26. People who lash out with terms like that generally aren't interested in educating themselves.

Science hate seems to be hip these days.

The science behind how the brain works is complex stuff really - Far easier to hate on it and dismiss it than it is to learn it.

[HubertHeaver]

8. Feel better about yourself? That kind of a personal attack is astounding.

You know nothing about me. For that to be your first response, first inclination, is despicable...to admit as much is mind-boggling.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

9. Don't feel bad; there are always people who think they couldn't possibly

make such a terrible mistake, and look down their noses at the "apologists" who understand how it can happen. In fact this can (and does) happen to all sorts of people. In the article I cited above, it 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." We are all at the mercy of the effects of fatigue and distraction on our fallible brains. Those that get up on their high horses and insist that they could never do such a thing are kidding themselves. And the rear-facing car seats, designed to protect children from being injured by air bags, have the unintended consequence of making it easier for these things to happen.

[HubertHeaver]

11. Thank you. Just what we need, a calm clear head. I certainly wasn't calm.

I tend to identify with the parent in these cases. Though back when I had young children, we didn't have those fancy, protective car seats or air bags either, for that matter. My two oldest, when they rode in the car, rode on their mother's lap...also known as the "death grip".

I didn't lose any though I had heard of other families not so fortunate.

[snooper2]

18. You weren't first, you are second so she wasn't actually referring to you...

Just FYI

[HubertHeaver]

20. I agree, the response was a broadside to all "apologists" for some bad behavior.

I took it rather personally, perhaps inappropriately so.

[LanternWaste]

23. Seems your indictment will have to be leveled at the CDC and AMA as well

Seems your indictment will have to be leveled at the CDC and AMA as well which both go to great (though objective) pains rationalizing that these cases often go beyond the irresponsibility of the parent, and recommend changes to current levels of education, legislation, regulation, in addition to changes in vehicle design.

However, I'm quite confident you are more aware of the neglect-the-baby apologists than either the CDC or the AMA.

[malaise]

31. Well said

It's complicated

[Liberal_in_LA]

10. Possibly everyone thinks someone else has the kid

[Warren DeMontague]

12. These stories are heartbreaking.

Just awful.

[JI7]

13. maybe there should be some device where you need to use car keys for the back

in order to fully lock the car ?

it can be a regular item that all parents buy and use it until the kid is a certain age where this wouldn't be something they have to worry about anymore.

[JHB]

15. The last time this topic came up, someone mentioned...

...taking off a shoe and putting it on the back seat. Or a purse or briefcase. Anything that would have to be actively retrieved before heading off no matter what was happening.

Make it part of theroutine so that the back is checked even when you're on autopilot.

[Fla_Democrat]

36. A shoe is better

it may be easy to forget a purse or briefcase (even a cell phone in this day and age), but stepping out with one bare foot... someone would have to be really zoned (or zonked) out not to notice that.

[mnhtnbb]

14. I hate hearing of these incidents. It's just so sad.

I never forgot my baby was in the car, but I did manage to lock my car keys in the car--with the baby in his car seat--twice.
After the second time, I deliberately changed my habit of carrying my keys in my purse to carrying my keys in a pocket.
Never wore anything without pockets again for a very long time, until after both boys were out of car seats. The minute I stepped
out of the car, those keys went in my pocket.

Fortunately, my husband was only 5 minutes away both times I did it and able to bring a second set of keys. I had
friends with babies who had to call the fire department and boy, did they get a lecture. This was almost 30 years ago
before people started being charged with various levels of child abuse.

It is so easy to be distracted.

[malaise]

22. Nice post

You did something about it.

[mnhtnbb]

24. I was lucky not to have to work full time when my babies were infants.

I also had the luxury of being able to afford a sitter to come to the house twice a week and give
me a few hours break. I had no family to help with child care. I was able to grocery
shop without timing it to feeding the baby, to run errands without having to schlep the baby
in/out of the car, to go to a dr's appointment or do any other kind of shopping without having
to drag the baby, deal with the stroller, deal with hot or cold or thirst or hunger or boredom
or anything else.

It makes all the difference in terms of not being totally stressed out. I cannot imagine how
stressful it is to have an infant and have to be working full time. It's two full-time jobs!

[malaise]

25. True people have full lives

and they have to work much harder for less pay today

[mnhtnbb]

27. I just finished reading the article that was posted in #2

Stress. I'm not surprised.

By experimentally exposing rats to the presence of cats, and then recording electrochemical changes in the rodents' brains, Diamond has found that stress -- either sudden or chronic -- can weaken the brain's higher-functioning centers, making them more susceptible to bullying from the basal ganglia. He's seen the same sort of thing play out in cases he's followed involving infant deaths in cars.

"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."

[mnhtnbb]

28. You know it was also in the days before cell phones. I had to leave the car

both times to go to the nearest phone to call my husband. Once it was the parking lot of the grocery store
and I could still see the car from the outside pay phone. The other time it was the bank parking lot
and I had to go inside the bank to make the call. My baby was alone in the car--not able to see me--
and I was terrified. He was crying and upset both times I got back to the car so he could see me.
Can you imagine what he was wondering why I wasn't getting him out of the car, while waiting for my
husband to show up with the keys?

So, I witnessed, in a very small way, for a very short time, what an infant experiences being left alone to die in a car.

[malaise]

30. That must have been awful

Yes - there are no public phones these days

[hamsterjill]

21. Horrific.

Can you imagine the loss and the guilt?

I've read that nowadays it is suggested that you take off your left shoe and put it in the back seat somewhere when you have a child back there and are starting to drive off. You'll remember when you step out and have only one shoe on.

While there probably is (and should) be a better way of having a reminder (i.e., some technology, I'm sure), this would be a simple enough habit to adopt for those who cart young children around and must obey laws.

[ailsagirl]

29. Despite all precautions (i.e., educating people), this keeps happening

Last edited Tue May 24, 2016, 05:13 PM - Edit history (1)

Here's why "all-of-a-sudden" this tragedy started occurring:

This is a relatively new problem. Prior to the early 1990s, children were routinely placed in the front seat, where it was obvious that they were in the car. In fact, from 1990 to 1992 there were only 11 known deaths of children from heatstroke after being left in a car. After that, car seats were moved to the back. This is when airbags became common and kids riding in the front seat were being killed by them -- 63 in 1995 alone. Not a single child has died due to an airbag since 2003, but at least 110 kids died of heatstroke from 2011 to 2013 -- a tenfold increase over the prior decade. So although kids are safer in cars in one way, they are more at risk in another.

http://www.parents.com/baby/safety/car/danger-of-hot-car-for-children/

[malaise]

34. Interesting

Maybe the smart phones need an AP that reminds parents that the baby is in the back.
Let's go DU Techies!

[ailsagirl]

35. That would be ideal

It's horrible that this is happening so often.

[Rex]

32. Wow, I cannot imagine that kind of guilt.

My heart goes out to the parents, I cannot imagine the kind of personal hell they just found themselves in.

[mcar]

33. Awful