http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865684933/Police-3-year-old-from-Fillmore-dies-in-hot-car-in-Las-Vegas.html

“After investigating this, at this time it appears it's just a tragic accident,” Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Lt. Roger Price said. “We have a very large family that came to town and appears to maybe have lost track of one of the juveniles. And unfortunately, by the time they found out what happened, too much time had already passed.”

This is tragic beyond words.

However I fail to see how any parent can "misplace" their child in a hot car while on vacation in the middle of the afternoon. A three year old to boot.

Very large family? So? What kind of excuse is that? Their child baked to death at 170 degrees because of gross negligence.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/16/2017 10:09PM by Amyjo.

These stories just really blow my mind. There are a lot of things I did wrong as a parent, but I never forgot I had kids...

Tragic for the child, but it was no accident. This is neglect plain and simple. There should be mandatory minimum criminal charges for the responsible adults who leave a child in a hot car.

Horrific indeed. Sadly reminds me of neglect in my large TBM family. I remember my brother often leaving one of the younger kids in the car after they'd get back from church to my parent's house for Sunday dinner. This because the kid had fallen asleep in his car seat and they figure they may as well just leave him there to take his nap. I don't know if they always left a window open or even thought of that. It certainly wasn't during ultra hot weather, but I could see how it could become hot or airless and how the child could be forgotten. I tended to be the one arriving to find one of their kids waking up from sleeping, alone in the car, with the doors all closed and disoriented, freaked out and crying. Just not okay on any level. But they are so exhausted all of the time from all the kids they just try to catch breaks when they can and often 'forget' one of them somewhere because they are sleep deprived and overworked at church, home and their jobs, just trying to obey all those commandments..

It's just awful, makes me sick. So so sad that a child should die that way, let alone die at all. What a nightmare. They should really pay for that, definitely should be some kind of manslaughter ruling.

Darwin strikes again. This is sickening.

It's not a Mormon issue
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/fatal-distraction-forgetting-a-child-in-thebackseat-of-a-car-is-a-horrifying-mistake-is-it-a-crime/2014/06/16/8ae0fe3a-f580-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html?utm_term=.83427581f481

"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."

Yes, not a mormon issue.
An issue of stupid and negligent.

Yeah, you can be a "rocket scientist" and be stupid and negligent. Or a police officer. Or anything else.

If it ever happened to me, I would tell people to continually remind me (while I'm in jail) that I was stupid and negligent. Maybe then I wouldn't be stupid and negligent again.

Not that I'm going to be stupid and negligent with my kids a first time...

It's a distraction issue, and there are some unique Mormon distractions.

I can see how this is a different situation, but the people who do it are distracted and have a drastic change of routine.

These tragedies infuriate me. I don't care how many children you have; numbers are not an excuse to be a forgetful dumb ass.

I would forget my child in a car. I won't forget my dogs.

A 3-year-old? How could a mother not notice a 3-year-old (or 2-year-old in the last death in Southern Utah) not notice her child was missing. I have neighbors with 6 kids 13 and under. She and I have talked about this. I KNOW this woman and her husband would NEVER forget their child in a hot car. They have a 2-year-old. One parent or another is around all the time.

When my kids would fall asleep in the car and I didn't want to wake them up (of course, never in the heat), I'd sit in the car and listen to music or read a book while they slept. Being the mother of twins, when they were asleep, I certainly did not want to wake them up unless necessary.

I am neurotic about my kids and my dogs. All you'd have to do is ask my kids and listen to me around my dogs. Even my dogs will stick their head around the seat to show me they are still in the car WHEN I'M DRIVING.

I was over protective to the point of being neurotic about mine too.

I still am.

to look out for.

I only had one child of my own to look after, and was basically a single mom, as my now-ex would do NOTHING to help care for our son. I was entirely on my own, and HYPER-aware of the responsibility. When I remarried, I had a super-responsible husband who was accustomed to minding his own kids by himself, and he had no difficulty in adding my son under his paternal wing. (My son told me many years after, after he himself was grown, that his stepdad was more of a father to him than his own had ever been. His assessment was right on.)

With the grandkids, all are now old enough to be verbal, and they ALL look out for each other. If one of them fell asleep in the back seat, the others would remind me (if I somehow slipped a cog and forgot), "So-and-so fell asleep in the back seat, Grandma."

Police are investigating "possible neglect?" You think?

As a grandmother I have always been terrified of doing this. So what I decided that when any kids are in the back seat I always put my purse in the backseat too. That would work for most women. Men may need to do something different but along the same line.

http://www.sltrib.com/news/5518182-155/nevada-authorities-identify-utah-child-who

"Las Vegas police said the boy's large family was visiting Nevada and about a dozen children were in the group."

Oh, so they probably figured one less was no big deal?

Unbelievable. How can people lose track of a child? That is not an accident. That's just plain old laziness and neglect.
What is the matter with parents that can't keep track of their youngsters?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/17/2017 10:23PM by SusieQ#1.

The ONLY way I can see "forgetting" a child in a car is if you never (or very, very rarely) take the child to (day care or wherever)--it is always your spouse who does. Maybe the child falls asleep--you have a big meeting or whatever on your mind--traffic is a real bitch, you have to take a detour, whatever...running late--and you get to work and leap out of the car and run inside and it just simply does not occur to you that you forgot something, until a couple of hours later somebody asks you how the baby is doing--or if your spouse calls...then suddenly, HOLY SHIT! and you take off running for your car. After all--you went to work instead of taking the turn-off for the day care, so...? I think some people know this *can* happen, so if they take the child when they don't ordinarily, a woman will put her purse or briefcase in the back seat by the child, and a man could also put his briefcase or jacket in the back. Something, anything, that would remind you the child is there. The keys to your desk--part of your work uniform...something...anything. Hang baby shoes on your inside door handle. But in this kind of case, with all those people---not the same thing at all. And the guy who recently got sent to prison (for life, I think) for "forgetting" his toddler son in his hot car all day at work--the police found that he had searched on his computer several times for "how long does it take a child to die in a hot car? (at different temperatures, etc.)" His lawyer pled him not guilty, but the jury and everybody knew better. That poor little guy was like 2 years old. :(