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With Spring Heating Up, a Tip for Parents and Cars
This evening I came back from grocery shopping and had to run our freezer bag into the house before going on another errand. Today in New Jersey had a high of 90 degrees, and so I left the car doors open for the three minutes it took to run into the house, put the ice cream in the freezer, and get back in the car to go to the pharmacy. Even just a few minutes with the doors closed would have been stifling, and I thought to myself “I wonder when I’ll see the first car seat death story this year.” Sadly, I had my answer when I opened Facebook tonight.
The New York Post reports the story out of Nashville, “Authorities say a recently adopted 1-year-old girl whose father left her in a truck has died. News outlets cite a release from Metro Nashville police saying the adoptive father “reportedly forgot” about the child after dropping off her sibling at day care on Wednesday. The girl’s adoptive mother found the child around 5:40 p.m. in a car seat inside the pickup truck parked outside their home.”
The story reminded me of the only time I came close to hurting one of my kids with our car; though I didn’t forget anyone.
My first two kids are 17 months apart, and my second never slept and never stopped screaming for approximately one year. His screams became white noise as I walked around in a daze. He was born in the middle of March, and a few weeks after he was born, I left the house with both kids for one of the first times. I had the baby bundled in his car seat, but because of car seat safety recommendations, I don’t put kids in their car seats with jackets on.
Normally I would hold the car seat in one hand and hold my daughter’s in the other, and leave the car seat next to or behind the car in the driveway as I buckled her in, but this day was too cold and I wanted to rush her into the car as fast as I could. Because the baby was warm under blankets in his removable infant car seat, I left him on the porch while I ran my daughter into the preheated car, where I buckled her in. I wasn’t physically able to carry both kids at the same time and intended to make a second trip for the baby on the porch. I wasn’t used to having two kids yet — as perhaps this father wasn’t either — and so, I started to pull out of the driveway. As I neared the corner a little thought bubble appeared “Gosh, it sounds like his cries are getting farther away, not softer.” And then I realized. I left the newborn on the porch.
That day was the first time I had ever left him on the porch instead of next to or behind the car in the driveway. It was divine intervention and a moment I will never forget. While there are a great number of summer car deaths, there are even more stories like mine, but with tragic endings.
Since overheated car deaths have become more publicized, a campaign was launched to remind parents to never forget their kids called “Bag in the Back.” The idea is pretty simple:
The foundation launched its “Bag in the Back” campaign this week. A video on the website states 700 children have died of heat stroke after accidentally being left in a car since 1998.
The video encourages parents to leave an essential item, such as a purse, in the back seat. The habit requires the parent to open the back door of the car before leaving the vehicle, which would likely prevent a child from being left inside.
After that day with my newborn son, I taped a note over my odometer: Count the kids. From then on, as soon as the key went into and out of the ignition, I looked in my rearview mirror and counted to make sure I had both of my kids. It doesn’t just prevent forgetting a kid in the car, but running one over as well.
Last year, I changed my routine slightly and now ask before I put my car into reverse or leave a parking lot “Got all my kids? Everyone buckled in?” The older two answer in the affirmative. The buckled in part of the routine originates from a road trip down to Washington DC. I took alone with my kids while I was pregnant with my third. In the rush to get out the door, I told my oldest to climb in and I buckled my second into his car seat, loaded all of the bags, and headed out. Because she was seated, I assumed I was the one who put her in her seat, and therefore had buckled her, but that was not the case. We drove from New Jersey to Baltimore before I heard her scream from the back row, “I’m not buckled in!” We pulled into a rest area, where I fastened her buckles, and she’s never let me forget the story (funny how they always remember our finest moments).
The Bag in the Back campaign forces parents to face an uncomfortable truth: we aren’t perfect, and one tiny mistake, one imperfection, can mean the difference between life and death for the people we love most in the world. Eight years ago the Washington Post’s Gene Weingarten wrote one of the most moving pieces of writing I’ve ever read on the subject as it relates to forgotten kids in hot cars; chilling in that it strips us of our ability to pretend it could never happen to us. Bag in the Back is a wonderful idea, and even more deaths could be prevented if we as parents can recognize our imperfection and set up safeguards (even as simple as a Post-It Note saying “Got all the kids? Everyone buckled in?”) to establish a routine to prevent a tragedy.
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What a great idea. I love it. This will help a lot.
This evening we went out to run errands. My wife put the address into her Waze app. When we got to the location, Waze beeped at her after announcing we’d arrived. It was a note reminding her to check for children. I didn’t know that was an option but is really neat.
I have that option turned on too!
My heart aches for parents who go through this.
I have yet to have my moment. My heart skips a beat as I pull out of our driveway that prompts me to count my kids. Sometimes, the panic continues even after I’ve been reassured of their presence. Did I get them all or am I going insane?
Oh … I’ve got stories.
But 30 years ago, neither my husband nor I had to put our infant(s) in the backseat. So we never came close to forgetting we had a baby
The proliferation of airbags has caused the proliferation of kids forgotten in the back seat.
As an aside, my best friend’s husband hurriedly dropped her and four ambulatory kids off at the front door of the church. He rushed and parked and joined them in the pew. My friend quirked an eyebrow and mouthed … baby?!
He absented himself and rescued the baby from a van on a cool, rainy day. I found the story charming (and from what I’m told the look on his face was priceless), but they had to stop telling it. Lots of horror and “oh my Gods”, disaster barely averted.
My biggest fear is cars backing out the driveway and kids in the front yard. They all have to be locked inside when someone backs up or in someone’s arms.
We actually count off
P.S. what’s with the scare quotes : “reportedly forgot” … anyone think he did it on “purpose”?
My dad nearly died in a car accident while he was in the Coast Guard, before he married.
As a young dad, he installed seat belts into his cars before they were standard and always insisted that everyone be wearing one before he would even start the engine. He would ask, and I recall friends moaning that my dad was weird, but he was unyielding.
This habit of car safety has helped me and my family develop similar habits.
I have six children, and I know the good Lord and their guardian angels have kept me from terrible mistakes that would have been so easy to make and so tragic.
Lord bless all parents.
When Papa Toad and I started getting the feeling that even though we’d counted, we were missing a child somewhere, it was usually not long before we were expecting again….
Some rental cars I have had in the last year (I think they were General Motors cars) have a system in which if I open a rear door before starting to drive (presumably to put something in the back seat, such as a child), then when I stop and turn off the car, activates a reminder to check the back seat for whatever I put there before driving.
Yes! Same! No kids in front yard of someone is leaving.
I remember as a new parent being so tired that I could have forgotten my kids in the car. I never did (thank the Lord), but I recognized the potential for it. It’s such a tragedy and my heart breaks whenever it happens.
Here in SC we had a problem with video poker games in convenient stores. Parents (mostly moms, surprisingly) would leave their kids in the car for hours in order to play. IIRC, we finally banned video poker – that, or there are no machines in our area. I can’t fathom why parents would do such a careless thing . . .
These stories always break my heart for everyone involved.
My son got me into the habit of buckling up. As a new Dad I would not move the car until he was buckled in safely and would tell him it was a requirement, so….he started asking me why I wasn’t buckled up when I was driving(wise mouthed kid even at 3)…long story short, now I can’t even back the car out onto the drive way to wash it without buckling up and my son is 36 now…so it can work both ways. And while I never left him in the car, I did forget to pick him up at daycare one day! oops.
Cars can detect when someone is in them, such as for airbag deployment override, from what I’ve heard. It seems this system could be used to set off a siren if it detects something alive inside when the car is off for more than a given amount of time. There could be an override button, if you want to make out in a car or for some other reason be in a car that is off, but the button would be in the rear seat area so you’d have to be looking at an infant in the rear seat when you pushed it. Otherwise, the alarm sounds. No one could ever say they forgot about the kid (or pet).
This seems like a good point to me, but it would require a study to confirm that the change in seating location is correlated with increased infant deaths from being left in the car.
Personally, I found it a nuisance when this changed. I was able to put my oldest son’s infant seat in the front with me, but my younger 3 kids had to go in the back.
There could be a mixed overall safety effect from this. I was troubled by being unable to see what an infant in the back was doing. For example, I would probably not have been able to notice if the baby was choking. On the other hand, having the baby in the back prevented me from being distracted when the baby was fussing, as there was little that I could do (such as giving the baby a bottle or pacifier while driving, which would have distracted me from my driving).
How does shared workload have an affect on this?
Seriously, I have never forgotten one of my kids. My domain is kids. That’s it.
If I had to share that with someone and also share the workload, how does that affect my abilities to do both without letting something slip?
i remember a few tragic stories where a baby / toddler was left in the car; lots of distractions like extra kids.
But mostly I remember stories where a dad had the baby in the back seat and rather than go to the sitter, he went into auto mode and drove straight to work.
The second type of tragedy would be totally avoided by having the baby in the front seat.
Trade offs I guess