While I was on my road trip in Oregon, two incidents
occurred back here in Georgia that I didn't learn about until my return, and
that's why this column is delayed in the writing and posting.
On June 18 in Atlanta a toddler
died from heat exhaustion after being left in his carseat in the back seat of his father's car while
the father went to work. The details of
the death are still being uncovered, and the father has been charged with
murder.
One day later, here in Augusta a woman
left her infant in her car while she went into a college to take final
exams. Fortunately, someone discovered
the child and called 911. Thanks to the alertness and quick action of that other student, the baby was
rescued and suffered only minor dehydration.
The mother has been charged with willful neglect with more serious
charges still pending.
Regardless of the grisly implications of these cases, it is
not unusual for several infant and toddler deaths to occur every year during
our summer months due to their being inadvertently left in the back of a car by
a preoccupied parent who intended to drop the child off at a day care center on
the way to work. The results are most
often fatal.
The laws for child
restraint seats vary widely by state, and many do not require that the child
be placed in the rear seat of the vehicle, but recommend rear seat if
available. It is common for the child
to go to sleep while riding in the car.
If the parent takes a cell phone call or becomes otherwise distracted,
it is all too easy to forget about the child;
out of sight-out of mind when there is no interaction
between the adult and the child.
The "rear seat restraint," whether required or
only recommended, is a problematic when the child is not yet old enough to
speak or when it goes peacefully to sleep out of sight of the adult. We live in a busy world and we try to
multi-task, often unsuccessfully. There
has to be some way to set an alarm that prevents us from neglecting that quiet
munchkin in the back seat.
Well, I'm please to say that there is such an alarm, and it
is very easy to arm it.
First of all, never go anywhere with a child in the back
seat without placing some object that you MUST RETRIEVE when you get to your
ultimate destination in the rear seating area.
For most women, that will be a purse, which you always carry with
you. Men are more likely to have tools,
a uniform hat, a briefcase, or some other essential item they cannot do
without. Whatever it is that you
designate as your 'alarm', make sure that you place that in the back seat out
of the child's reach. If you get in the
habit of alarming the car in this fashion, the chance of disaster is reduced to
zero. There might be that day when you
get to work late, because you had to turn around and go back to drop the kid off,
but that beats the alternative.
I know that many, if not most of you to whom I send this
weekly column are not in the child-rearing years. You don't have infants or toddlers, but I'll bet you have some
grand children who you love very much.
That means that you must share this column with your own children and
anyone else you know who has children of that
age. Let's make this summer one
that is disaster-free on the car seat tragedy news.
