Common sense -- and laws in some places -- tell us that small children shouldn't be left in cars alone. Ever. Not just this once, or just for "a sec" It only takes a few minutes for things to go terribly wrong, and a recent close call in Orem, Utah, illustrates one of the reasons why.
Last week, Gail Belliston was walking out of a store when she heard a child screaming from a car. According to the Deseret News, the child was terrified and sweating profusely, so after a few minutes of seeing no one coming for the kid, Belliston pulled her out. Thank goodness she did too, because testing showed the temperature in the car had reached 110 degrees.
Police were called, but the mom didn't show up until 20 minutes after they arrived.
The woman said she'd just gone inside to use the restroom and that her daughter was sleeping so she didn't want to wake her up. But police say the girl was left alone at least 25 minutes, so it's pretty easy to deduce that she did some shopping or something else too.
Regardless of what she was doing, there's no excuse for what she did. It was reportedly around 88 degrees outside, but temperatures rise rapidly inside a closed car. If Belliston hadn't intervened, who knows how long the little girl would have survived.
Even more concerning is that the mother was only issued a ticket for a misdemeanor, but the girl was sent home with her.
Fortunately, this story had a somewhat happy ending, despite the fear I have for this girl being in the custody of someone who would be so reckless with her safety. But there are plenty of other instances in which there isn't a heroic stranger passing by to save a child.
Already this year, four children have died from hyperthermia after being left in a car in the United States, according to Jan Null, with San Francisco State University's Department of Geosciences. In 2011, 33 children died as a result of it.
So while leaving a child in a car alone is never a good idea, it's especially important to remember as temperatures climb higher. It's dangerous, potentially deadly, and nothing is worth the risk.
Do you ever leave your small children in the car alone?
Image via .reid/Flickr
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Comments 89
And when this girl ends up dead in a few years the gov't will do an investigation to see "what went wrong". I dont get it. People are doing hard time for possession of weed, but leave a child in a car to die and get a ticket!
They should have released her name in the news, so people will know she does that, this might force her to stop leaving her in the car.
Stacey you're right, but then they go and take kids away from their parents for other things. Even though this woman just about left her child out to die.
The only time I would leave my son in the car is when he's sleeping and it's parked in the drive way (we live in the country and have a long gravel driveway) If it's hot, I'll leave the car running with the AC on, if it's nice outside I roll down all the windows. Even then, I park it right in front of front door of the house and leave the door open so that I can hear him when he wakes up, and even then I'm always poking my head into the car to feel the temperature inside. I always feel horrible when I read stories about people who accidentally forget children in their cars, because we've all made mistakes and those parents will have to live with that horrible knowledge forever, but in this case it sounds like the mom did it on purpose and there's no reason for that.
I wish I could leave my teenager in a hot car, but unfortunately he's just smart enough now to know how to open the door. :-|
This is absurd. Who in their right mind would do that?!?!?!