Texas toddler dies after mom leaves her in a hot car for 45 minutes

[Novelty_Bobble]

@Diogenes_the_Cynic

I never forget to check my mirrors when changing lanes,

Yes, you do, but you may never even notice it and, in a lifetime of driving, may never have any consequences from it.

You go on from your above statement to tell us about a time when you had a “brain lock”.
So it does happen to you? and do you get to choose when? under what circumstances ? with what consequences?

I think you know the answers to that already.

[billfish678]

Slightly related.

You know how a sports player really flubs up once in a great while? Like a pro golfer that screws up a short putt an elementary student could make. Or a basketball player who misses an easy shot. Or a baseball player that drops a ball he should have easily caught. Or a bowler that flubs an easy peasy shot.

These guys are PRO’s. They train for this shit day in and day out. And while they are doing it they often don’t have other distractions (or at least ones not related to the game).

I remember hearing about a study that recently looked at this. And it apparently is caused by a type of “brain fart” as well.

The brain is NOT like a computer program that if you just write (train) the program perfectly it will run perfectly everytime. The brain is more like a very a bunch of very poorly written programs operating under a Windows operating system on a computer with insufficient memory

Engineering types who deal with stuff that has to be operated by humans do NOT rely on humans “not forgetting” because they know damn well sooner or later someone will. If its possible, they rely on people having to screw up (or things failing) multiple times in a row to bring the odds down to the “rare” level.

You folks who think could NEVER screw up something important by forgetting are so far up the Denial River its a bone dry creek bed.

[Novelty_Bobble]

Billfish678, good example.

Anyone who watches golf will see the routines that the players go through. They do it so that they run less risk of forgetting something and it gives them a better chance of carrying out a repeatable action.

And if that routine is disturbed? They do it all again from the start. Why? because they know that once they have been disturbed there is a good chance that they will get the rest of the sequence wrong.

Unfortunately in real life we don’t get a chance of repeating a sequence from the start. Mistakes will logically follow from this.

[Bearflag70]

@chela

I agree that you are misguided if you equate completely forgetting a child to be the same sort of brain fart as if you left your salami and cheese sandwich in the car. Not the same, sorry.

The resulting harm is different, but the mental state is the same: forgetfulness.

[Death_of_Rats]

@Diogenes_the_Cynic

So it should be legal to leave a baby in a car until it dies?

@Stratocaster

Not if it’s intentional. Do you believe that’s what occurred here?

Honest question, short of a full confession, how would you know?

[CrazyCatLady]

I just don’t get people who insist that no decent parent could ever forget a sleeping baby in a car. My mother is one of them. She absolutely does not understand how you could ever forget anything so important. This, in spite of the fact that she, on multiple occasions, got halfway home before she realized that I was still sitting at school waiting for her to come pick me up. Somehow, I suspect she’d get really pissed if I asked her whether I was less important as an adolescent, or if she was just a bad, neglectful parent.

[Tom_Scud]

@Diogenes_the_Cynic

I will say that I’ve had lapses for a few seconds when getting out of the car and starting to walk away, but I’ve always caught myself in time. I get the brainfart thing, but I can’t imagine being able to forget for hours at a time.

So during those few seconds, your cell phone rings - it’s your boss, who tells you that customer X from three days ago has filed a lawsuit saying that you had done Y, and while he has every confidence in you, could you make sure and talk to Legal and make sure they have your complete version of the story?

Or else, if you don’t carry a cell phone, you take those ten steps away from your car and some asshole crashes into a parked car five more steps forward; not so close that you’re actually hurt but close enough that you have to jump back. In the shock of the moment, your brain never quite manages to reverse and pick up on the one little thing you’d forgotten in your car.

Both very low-probability events of course, but then this thing only happens a couple dozen times a year in a country of 300 million people.

[ToborAton]

I decided to fight some ignorance today.

I first heard of this issue a few months ago from this Washington Post article by Gene Weingarten:
Fatal Distraction: Forgetting a Child in the Backseat of a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime?

I would suggest that everyone pay close attention to the whole of this paragraph on the last page:

@WP article quoting Dr. David Diamond; pg. 5

“The quality of prior parental care seems to be irrelevant,” he said. "The important factors that keep showing up involve a combination of stress, emotion, lack of sleep and change in routine, where the basal ganglia is trying to do what it’s supposed to do, and the conscious mind is too weakened to resist. What happens is that the memory circuits in a vulnerable hippocampus literally get overwritten, like with a computer program. Unless the memory circuit is rebooted – such as if the child cries, or, you know, if the wife mentions the child in the back – it can entirely disappear."

That article won a 2010 Pulitzer prize for “Feature Writing”:

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I am pretty sure this Dr. David Diamond is the same expert that the article was using since his recent publications includes the WP article:

Faculty | People | Psychology | USF

That WP article marks 5 years that Dr. Diamond has been talking to reporters about this subject. You can find his other articles here:

Faculty | People | Psychology | USF

Dr. Diamond’s web page lists his publications and you can ask him to email copies of his papers to you:

Faculty | People | Psychology | USF

I think this paper is a good starting place at the very least because it was published in Nature (a well respected and generally recognizable journal):
“Kim, J.J. and Diamond, D.M. (2002) The stressed hippocampus, synaptic plasticity and lost memories. Nature Reviews - Neuroscience, 3:453-462.”

@Synopsis

Stress is a biologically significant factor that, by altering brain cell properties, can disturb cognitive processes such as learning and memory, and consequently limit the quality of human life. Extensive rodent and human research has shown that the hippocampus is not only crucially involved in memory formation, but is also highly sensitive to stress. So, the study of stressinduced cognitive and neurobiological sequelae in animal models might provide valuable insight into the mnemonic mechanisms that are vulnerable to stress. Here, we provide an overview of the neurobiology of stress–memory interactions, and present a neural–endocrine model to explain how stress modifies hippocampal functioning.

@Stress Definition (read the paper for the caveats)

With these caveats in mind, we offer a three-component definition of stress that can be applied broadly across species and paradigms.First, stress requires heightened excitability or arousal,which can be operationally measured using electroencephalography, behavioural (motor) activity or neurochemical (adrenaline, glucocorticoid) levels.Arousal, however, can increase under either pleasurable or aversive conditions.So, second, the experience must also be perceived as aversive.Aversiveness can be defined as an indication that the subject would avoid or attenuate the intensity of the stressor if given the opportunity. Shock-avoidance conditioning in animals is stressful because it is arousing and the animals attempt to avoid, or at least minimize, their exposure to the shock.For people who find public speaking unpleasant, the experience satisfies the first two criteria of the stress definition, because they would find the experience arousing, and they would avoid making the presentation if possible. Those who enjoy public speaking might find the experience arousing, but because they don’t want to avoid making the presentation, their experience would not be stressful.

The third component of the definition of stress is controllability.Two animals that are exposed to the same level of electric shock can show arousal and attempt to make an avoidance response, but the experience can have very different behavioural and physiological effects if one animal has control over the termination of the shock.Corresponding work in people has shown that having control over an aversive experience has a profound mitigating influence on how stressful the experience feels. The element of control (and the related concept of ‘predictability’) in the stress definition is the variable that ultimately determines the magnitude of the stress experience and the susceptibility of the individual to develop stress-induced behavioural and physiological sequelae.

In summary,we define stress as a condition in which an individual is aroused by an aversive situation – for example, a
hostile employer, unpaid bills, a predator or a pawshock. The magnitude of the stress and its physiological consequences

I also feel the need to put the numbers in perspective.

Death by hyperthermia accounts for 15-25 deaths a year:

@WP article; pg. 2

“Death by hyperthermia” is the official designation. When it happens to young children, the facts are often the same: An otherwise loving and attentive parent one day gets busy, or distracted, or upset, or confused by a change in his or her daily routine, and just… forgets a child is in the car. It happens that way somewhere in the United States 15 to 25 times a year, parceled out through the spring, summer and early fall. The season is almost upon us.

(American?) Parents kill 1,096-1,826 children a year:

Notorious Criminals and Crimes

According to the American Anthropological Association, more than 200 women kill their children in the United States each year. Three to five children a day are killed by their parents. Homicide is one of the leading causes of death of children under age four, yet we continue to “persist with the unrealistic view that this is rare behavior,” says Jill Korbin, expert on child abuse, who has studied mothers who killed their children.

[billfish678]

Thanks for that info ToborAton!

[Dinsdale]

I didn’t read every post terribly carefully, but has there been much discussion of the suggestion that this increased after airbags had childseats moved to the back? I’ve long thought airbag standards - sufficient to restrain an unbelted adult male - among the stupidest things around.

That aside, I’m not terribly offended by the idea of parents being held legally responsible for negligently causing the death of their children. Sounds like all the people in the article were trying to do a whole bunch of things at once, and ended up neglecting what I submit should have been far and above their highest obligation. Sorry, folks, but the living being you created and who depends on you is not just another chore. Then the one mom wants everyone to get ff her back about the kid she killed when she was worried about whipping out the turkey baster and making another? Yeah - maybe she oughtn’t be jailed, but sterilization might be a good idea.

I’ll grant that this could possibly happen to me. And if it did, I would favor society dealing with me extremely harshly. And a good part of such incidents is likely attributable to luck - mine good because I never fucked up that bad, and theirs bad because they did. Doesn’t bother me overly.

[Mighty_Girl]

@Dinsdale

That aside, I’m not terribly offended by the idea of parents being held legally responsible for negligently causing the death of their children.

Who is not offended by parents who, through negligence, cause the death of their kids?

Look, a couple of years back some genius mom spent several hours in the beauty salon while her kids were strapped in the car. I will not shed a tear because she almost certainly ended up in prison. This is not the kind of case most of us are talking about. Please stop pretending we are defending negligent parents.
What we are talking about is parents that had a catastrophic memory failure. And we are not suggesting they get a pat on the head, an “attaboy!” and a cash award; we are suggesting that we are all afflicted by the same design flaw, that its best for all of us to be aware of this and subsequently become doubly vigilant about this type of problems. We also contend that, in the specific type of cases we are talking about, we should be sympathetic, feel pity for these poor people.

I do not believe that my stance makes me a worse human, or a worse parent. On the contrary, because I am a a good, loving mother, I can see how absolutely devastating it would be to cause, even if accidentally, the death of your child.

[Stratocaster]

@Diogenes_the_Cynic

If you know the baby is in the car, then forgetting it is willful. For it not to be willful, you would have to have never had any knowledge that the kid was in the car, not just knew and “forgot.” I have seen no cite that it’s legal to bake a baby in a car if you say “I forgot.”

That is the most bizarre definition of “willful” I have ever heard, in that it is the only one I’ve ever encountered that does not have an aspect of willfulness in it.

And I will point out that you have yet again ignored the question, posed multiple times, by multiple people–if you are correct, how do you explain the acquittals that have occurred, when you say that the law has only one proper application? How do you explain the instances where the prosecutor doesn’t even pursue a case?

Sorry, you are wrong.

[Algher]

There was one of these incidents where I live a few years ago. The husband and wife shared drop-off responsibilities, and the kid would fall asleep on the way to the child care center. The wife loaded the kid in, and then the husband left for work. He didn’t know what was going on until he walked outside and saw the ambulance, cops and firefighters at his car.

I have no doubt in my mind that it was an accident. As for punishment - the goal is one of punishment, deterrence and rehabilitation in our justice system I believe.

Punishment: Nothing could punish that man more than what he lost.
Deterrence: I don’t need him to go to jail to convince me that this was a horrible thing.
Rehabilitation: He was not a career criminal, nor do I think he needed any sort of addition work from our system. A therapist to keep him from suicide is about it.

I feel close to this one, because one week prior I had met him and his son at the local park. Our two boys are the same age, and we were talking about our sons growing up together in the neighborhood.

Leaving a kid in the car should still be a crime, but I also have no problem with allowing the DA to make a judgment on when to press charges, or a jury to let him off, or a judge to not bother with much in the way of a punishment. I think that in most (99.9999%) of these cases the punishment has already been meted out.

[Dinsdale]

@Mighty_Girl

…we are suggesting that we are all afflicted by the same design flaw, that its best for all of us to be aware of this and subsequently become doubly vigilant about this type of problems. We also contend that, in the specific type of cases we are talking about, we should be sympathetic, feel pity for these poor people.

I think I call BS to this. Some folk have offered this theory of a “perfect storm” of stress which leave parents helpless to attend to what should be pretty much their primary responsibility - making sure they do not kill their kid.

Let’s acknowledge and hold people responsible for the countless choices they make to put themselves into a highly stressful lifestyle - including the choice to have a kid. Fuck all this “it could happen to anyone” shit. Sure it could. But it is a hell of a lot more more likely to happen to people who consider parenting just another chore they can “multitask” just fine - along with dual careers, coordinating childcare, using the cellphone while driving to do errands, etc.

[Any_Other_Name]

I stopped reading this thread when Dio first posted. I wasted way too much time reading the last thread about how a 15 year old could *never *pass as an adult. But I had to come back when I saw the page count going up.

@Diogenes_the_Cynic

If you know the baby is in the car, then forgetting it is willful. For it not to be willful, you would have to have never had any knowledge that the kid was in the car, not just knew and “forgot.” I have seen no cite that it’s legal to bake a baby in a car if you say “I forgot.”

Do you understand the definition of the words you’re typing, over and over and over again? Do you understand the definition of the word “willful”? Do you understand the definition of the word “forget”?

Continuously repeating:

There is nothing in the statutes that say you get to walk if you say “I forgot.”

I haven’t seen a cite that law is suspended if people say “I forgot.”

If you know the kid is in the car, then leaving it is automatically willful. We don’t legalize baking babies in the car as long as you say “I forgot.” That’s not how it works.

your point doesn’t become stronger, it becomes weaker, with each repetition. Especially in opposition to the posts of BearFlag70 and Brown Eyed Girl, who provided clear evidence of the role intent plays in determining crimes involving death. They and others are fighting ignorance, while you’re promoting it. But they’ve got details and arguments and cites, while all you’ve got is:

Show me where any statute says that intent is a factor in the legality of leaving a baby in a car.

Google any statute. Show me one that says it has to be intentional.

Can you type these words with a straight face? You expect a law on criminal negligence to specify details to apply in the specific case of a baby left in a car? As far as a cite specifying the role of intent in criminal negligence, that’s been given.

Another point:

@Cicero

If a child dies of cot death I guess we shoot the parents.

@Diogenes_the_Cynic

Does that involve negligence by the parents? A child being left alone in the car is not a random, unpredicable event outside the parents’ control.

@Stratocaster

So, if someone darts from behind a car, and is killed by a motorist, should the driver be arrested?

@Diogenes_the_Cynic

This is not a profitable analogy. It does not involve an act of negligence on the part of the driver. Forgetting a baby is negligence. It’s not an excuse, it’s a negligent act in itself.

In a Bizarro Diogenes world, it would be argued that these parents are criminally negligent. How negligent of a parent not to watch their child 24x7; they ***KNEW ***about crib death, but they did NOTHING! And judging the negligence of the driver in the second case is done every day; by police, prosecutors, in the court of public opinion, and if determined by the prosecutor as necessary, in a court of law, where intent and the degree of negligence will certainly be judged.

[billfish678]

@Stratocaster

That is the most bizarre definition of “willful” I have ever heard, in that it is the only one I’ve ever encountered that does not have an aspect of willfulness in it.

No fracking kidding! And I thought the just plain forgetting can be willfull was out there!

But, hey, you gotta expect the unexpected from a pro like Dio.

[Bearflag70]

Pssst! Dio’s beatdown on this topic, willfulness, etc., occurred over here already.

[Dinsdale]

Will some of the crim law experts here explain to me whether gross negligence could ever give rise to criminal liability?

Just STM that if a helpless person in your care dies as the direct result of your actions/omissions, with no intervening act of god or any 3d party actions, that should be a pretty solid prima facie case of gross negligence which I believe ought to be prosecuted criminally. Of course, any individual’s guilt would be a matter of fact to be decided by the judge/jury, with the accused able to introduce any exculpatory evidence.

AlgherThere is both specific and general deterrence. Public prosecutions might contribute to having one less parent fucking up so tragically.

[Cat_Whisperer]

@Dinsdale

<snip>

Let’s acknowledge and hold people responsible for the countless choices they make to put themselves into a highly stressful lifestyle - including the choice to have a kid. Fuck all this “it could happen to anyone” shit. Sure it could. But it is a hell of a lot more more likely to happen to people who consider parenting just another chore they can “multitask” just fine - along with dual careers, coordinating childcare, using the cellphone while driving to do errands, etc.

That’s actually a really good point - I hadn’t thought of it from that perspective. It almost sounds like you’re espousing a viewpoint that people can’t have it all, and have to make choices, and those choices have consequences - that kind of crazy talk.

[Bearflag70]

@Dinsdale

Will some of the crim law experts here explain to me whether gross negligence could ever give rise to criminal liability?

Just STM that if a helpless person in your care dies as the direct result of your actions/omissions, with no intervening act of god or any 3d party actions, that should be a pretty solid prima facie case of gross negligence which I believe ought to be prosecuted criminally. Of course, any individual’s guilt would be a matter of fact to be decided by the judge/jury, with the accused able to introduce any exculpatory evidence.

AlgherThere is both specific and general deterrence. Public prosecutions might contribute to having one less parent fucking up so tragically.

That’s what we’ve been discussing all along here and in the companion Pit thread.