A father of a 15 month old boy in the US was charged with negligent homicide recently. The victim was his son. He was supposed to take him to day care. But after putting him in the car, he forgot about him and went to work instead. His son died after being left in the car over seven hours.
This has happened in Malaysia as well – a three-year old girl was found dead in a car parked in Subang Jaya last year after spending five hours in it.
We’ve talked about this before. What killed these innocent children is not the lack of oxygen or ventilation or anything like that. It was heat. A car’s interior can get incredibly hot, parked under the sun. It essentially turns into an oven.
It’s not even the hours and hours of time that these children spend unattended that causes it – it can take as little as 15 minutes stuck in an overheated car interior for a child to suffer life-threatening brain or kidney injuries. child’s body can heat up much faster than an adult’s.
The heat can cause sweating, dehydration, and seizures, among others. When a child’s body temperature hits 40 degrees Celsius, internal organs shut down, and at 41.6 degrees Celsius, the child could die.
A majority of the cases occur when loving parents get distracted from their routine and they don’t realise that the child was in such a position. Our busy schedules, combined with the tendency for us to seat our sleeping children in the rear of our cars (because that’s where the child seat is usually mounted), could cause us to forget that we are carrying precious cargo in our car cabins. We could potentially go about our routine and leave our kids locked in the car.
Other than trying our very best to remember, other methods we can use to ensure that we don’t forget about our sleeping babies is to place an item (that you need to take with you when you leave your car) at the rear with the child. This could be your handbag, for example, and you can place it on the floor in a secure area just so you are forced to go to the back of the car when you leave.
To passersbys, if you spot a child left in a car alone, you should call the police immediately. If you watched the video, you’d know that the child in the video was saved by passersbys.
Please share this with everyone you know who has children, or has to take care of children.
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This is very good article.
I like the idea to ask the babysitter when the child is not around.
And maybe in the future it will be a technology to alert car owners when somebody is in the car while the car was locked.
The best way to remember is have a few kids. Then you always have them in your mind. Don’t be like those having bus loads of kids. Just because Mahathir told people to have 5 kids and more is good, it is not necessarily so. Keep your family small and not have 5 or 6 kids so you can focus on the 2 or 3 kids. Now those having 5 or 6 kids are all crying because of cost. Padan muka for listening to the Government. They had another agenda.
I’m sorry to say that the number of kids is irrelevant in this case. Whether you have 1 kid or 10 kids, you can still mess up and make a deadly mistake because you’re still human. Therefore, try to minimize the chances of slipping up by taking this seriously and set up a system to remind yourself of your kids. It might be hard and unnatural at first but over time, the system usually becomes second nature.
Cheers.
i think conti car already have that sensor..
still in tears while typing this…can’t imagine the pain and suffering of that kid. Don’t worry son…ayah is coming home now
Still remember when i was trying to wake up a kid locked in an exora.What bug me is that the mum stop trying and just circle the car instead.
Lucky the aircond is on and it was 6.30 pm.
I had to slap the door of the car as it produce the most annoying noise.
Rocking the car does not work.
One other time,had to break the rear window.What weird is that the driver is kinda heavy hearted abt breaking the window.On both occassion its women whom involve.Not being racist here,but please…act fast and dont hessitate.
You’re not racist, but you’re a sexist ***.
Was about to say that the above was trying to say sexist, not racist. But he was just relaying his experience and in both circumstances, both responsible parties just happened to be women. It’s just his experience.
Maybe as added precaution,
car owner can add/install motion sensor.
It will trigger the alarm even the slightest movement in the car after u lock it. (Mine Clifford Directed)
Like mine it works perfectly, but still i always put my bag-pack at the but of the car, just to be safe.
Most modern cars come with those, nowadays, even if there is no obvious location for the unit.
Being a parent myself, i can’t imagine how is it possible to forget that you have your child on board. Reading news about child death because of parents’ forgetfulness and thoughtlessness really makes my blood boil. Saying they are bad at parenting is an understatement.
It is easy to blame the parents for being negligent and forgetful and, no matter what we might say, they are in the wrong. However, we are not the court of law. They don’t need our condemnation and it certainly does us nothing good when we condemn them. Their hearts will sear themselves and they will never forget. Rather, sympathize with them and learn from their mistake. They’re only human and we make mistakes. You’re human too.
Handbag in the rear seat is a bad advice and it should be a no no in malaysia, else you risk the screen kena smashed at traffic lights!
Notice how the author said something about putting the handbag somewhere secure, like on the floor.
as much as this saddens me a lot, we must understand how the parents felt – even worse. and its not that they did it intetionally. the parents love the children as much as we love ours.
but this is good advice paul. keep it up.
I always teach my daughter to press the horn when I was outside of car n she want my attention. Otherwise just install utra sound sensor.
One case i got to break the glass of the car becoz the neighbour s mum left the child in the car after the child locked inside. And till now the father keep pestering me to replace the glass screen.
I dont know how (stupid) parents can be for “accidently” leaving their kids in their car…..
Too occupied with playing with their smartphones??
Parents like this shouldn’t allow to have children in the 1st place, as they are plain irresponsible….
What next?? Parents gone for oversea holiday and forgot to feed the kids??
the mother should be charged in court. She can tell her side of the story and then the court can decide how severe it should be. A clear message must be sent, or it will mean the law is not concerned with these sorts of events.
There are also incident in JB where a mother left her daughter in car where she sopposed to send her to day care. Her daughter died but no public knowing it.