Man left baby in car for 8 hours (he's ok) outside work. Didn't realize until wife called

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

81. The Washington Post article is very sad, but also very instructive.

It tells us that anybody can make a terrible mistake. Anybody.

I teach a college course in aviation safety, and we study, among other things, the "Swiss cheese" model mentioned in the article. And we also address the many things that can lead to a plane crash, and they are exactly the same things that caused these parents to forget their child was in the back seat: stress, fatigue, distractions, changes in routine. And we learn that most of the pilots involved in accidents were not incompetent, stupid people, but in most cases were smart, competent and well-trained, with no history of problems or incidents. Human factors in industrial safety have been studied carefully for at least 30 years, and it certainly appears that the same principles apply to the everyday lives of ordinary people as well.

In aviation and other industries, safety measures include technological safeguards and warning systems and the extensive use of checklists. These things are used because people are fallible; our brains don't always work the way they should no matter how hard they try.

So if you're tempted to cast stones at these parents, who must be suffering the torments of the damned, you'd better get off your high horse, because even if you don't think you could ever do something that awful, the fact is that you and I and everybody else really could.