Yes, lets leave our kids in a running car......

The BBQ Pit
1

Wonderful Idea isn’t it!

I park at about 7:00 at a local shopping center. My friends and I get out of the car and walk towards the stores and I notice that one of the cars I am walking by has it’s engine running. I jokingly ask my friends if they want a car… We laugh at the stupidity of the driver, because most certainly this car will not be here when he/shee gets back. I turn back around and then I notice what is in the back seat. There is a small toddler, no more than a year old strapped in a car seat apparently sleeping in the back seat. Next to him is a young boy no older than 5 or 6, also apparently sleeping. This situation just went from funny to dangerous.

The car is running, the keys are in the ignition, the heat is on running full blast, the windows are completely sealed… and there are two kids asleep or unconcious in the back. I go for my cell phone and call information for the local police. By the time I get connected we have been standing there maybe ten minutes. After I relay all the info about our location it has been fifteen minutes. A squad is dispactched immediately. After I hang up, one of my friends moves our car to directly infront of this car, so incase one of the kids wakes up and knocks the car into drive it won’t go far. Meanwhile, I go and start to check the car doors… all locked… and then I start knocking on the windows… neither of the kids move a muscle. I knock harder and by now I am pounding on the window. The kids aren’t moving. The girl that moved our car goes for something to break the glass, as she is in the trunk looking, the owner of the vehicle and the presumable mother of the kids comes out of one of the stores. She asks what the hell I am doing and I tell her, and that the police are on the way, she screams at me for a minute that her kids were perfectly safe and fine and she was only in there for a minute I tell her that her kids aren’t waking up… and to please wait for the police. She unlocks the car, jumps in, and squeals away yelling that I am a stupid bitch. The squad pulls up seconds later and takes off after her. I don’t know if the kids are ok, or dead. Or even if the cop caught the lady. I am pissed, and upset. Why in the hell would you endanger your kids like that you stupid goat fucking bitch! Your kids, and car could have been gone gone goen by the time you got out of the store and you bitch at someone that was concerned that your kids might be the unwilling victims of a carjacking or worse! So insetead of checking to make sure that your kids are of you procede to BITCH AND SCREAM AT SOMEONE WHO WAS CONCERNED! FUCK YOU YOU INGNORANT BRAINLESS TWIT!!! (b) I HOPE YOU NEVER BREED AGAIN SO YOUR KIDS DON’T DIE BECAUSE YOU DON’T HAVE THE BRAINS ENOUGH TO KEEP THEM SAFE! (/B) I hope the cop caught up with you and your kids were ok, but she gave you an ENOURMOUS FINE for being so SQUIRREL FUCKINGLY STUPID!

May your reproductive organs rot and fall out in a foul smelling rush you sad stupid excuse of a parent.
Thank you.
~Aqua

2

In a situation like that, I’d steal the tires. If the car can’t move, it has multiple beneficial effects:

a) Kids can’t knock it into drive
b) Stupid bitch can’t endanger the lives of other motorists when she gets on the road

3

We have had a rash of this sort of thing happening in Australia lately. Quite often outside shopping centres or casinos. The first person who killed her kids this way was vilified, but served as a public example for all. After the third or fourth death or near-death, people have absolutely no sympathy and the vilification the first women received looks like a birthday party to what the media and general public is dishing out now.

Try and forget the woman’s response to you, as she was trying to stop you from displaying her complete ignorance and stupidity. Please don’t let it stop you from trying to save other children, if you come across the same situation again. What makes me wonder is how many people walked by and chose not to interfere before you did ???

You need a licence to drive the car, even to go fishing, but no licence needed to start pumping out kids !

4

That works for endangering others… how about saving the kids ? Children can die in a very short time, from heat exhaustion when left locked in cars. :frowning:

5

lenin, a car can move, to a certain extent, without tires.
Brake drums turn too…
Also, my 2 cents worth of rant…
…ANYONE WHO LEAVES THEIR KIDS LOCKED IN A CAR DESERVES A PUBLIC HORSE WHIPPING… some people just dont care, too caught up in their daily lives to think about what realy matters.

6

In our little town, just the other day a woman left her little baby in a car and I wont go into the rest. Leaving the heater on with children and infants can be fatal. I just hope those children that Aquapura helped are ok. I just can not figure out what people think when they do these ignorant things. Do they not have maternal or paternal instincts? It just grosses me out. It depresses me really.

7

In the wonderful suburbs of Minneapolis, MN we ran into a similar “outbreak” last summer. People leaving or “forgetting” (don’t ask unless you want a really long ranted explanation) their kids in the car. During the hottest part of the summer, and even in Minnesota it can get mighty hot in a sunwarmed car.

For the poor children in the Minnesota cases, it meant death.

I feel so bad for you Aqua. That must have been a horrible nightmare. I hope those kids are taken away from their mother and NEVER returned. I don’t get how people can be so FUCKING stupid.

I have a 3-year-old daughter and I don’t even leave her in the car when it’s not running for two seconds if I have to run back into the house for something. As much of a pain in the ass as it is, I’d rather unbuckle her and re-buckle her than take the stupid chance.

BTW, I’m very proud of you (yeah, like you care, lol) for doing the brave and responsible thing! So many people would have walked away shaking their heads and done nothing. You made sure those kids were not going to sit there for another hour waiting for “mommy or daddy” to get with the program. GOOD FOR YOU!!! :slight_smile:

8

In a horrifying situation recently here in Oz a woman stopped her car, ran into a shop to buy take away soup for her sleeping child in a car seat (“it will only take a minute”) and returned to find the car stolen.

The thief abandoned the car, with child, only a few blocks away, and the child died (from the heat) in the two hours it took to find the car.

I applaud people who take steps to save idiot parents from disaster, and innocent kids from death. On ya 'Pura!

Redboss

9

i never expect parents to be grateful when they leave their kids in a dangerous situation and a stranger intervenes. my theory is that if they were stupid enough to leave their kids locked in a car or whatever, they aren’t likely to be smart enough to appreciate your having rescued them.

when i was a teenager i was shopping at an outlet mall with my mother, and i saw a woman go into a shop, leaving her five year old to watch the baby in his stroller out on the sidewalk. i didn’t want to scare the kids, so i just sat on a nearby bench and watched them to make sure no one tried anything with these two unattended small children. fucking stupid parents.

10

Better break out your horsewhip and come see me then.

In my case, I’m afraid I don’t see the issue, here.

Temperature? That’s why I left the car running, so the air would run and keep them cool.

Car theft? That’s why I locked the car doors. Now, of the 3 or so in front of the small store I stop at about once a week on the way home, I now have the only locked car, making it the least likely target. Everyone else pretty much leaves their keys in the ignition too…

Kids knocking car into gear? That’s why they are strapped into their safety seats. Besides, that is why the emergency brake is set.

My kids being out of my sight in a potentially dangerous situation? That describes life in the real world. My kids are often out of my sight, and life is a potentially dangerous situation. As a parent, I cannot “keep my kids safe.” No one can. Things happen. What I CAN do is use such experience in the world as I have to mitigate risks until the little knuckleheads are old enough to assume responsibility for their own risk management. Thus the store I choose if I need to pick something up. I park directly in front, 8 feet from a huge plate glass window that runs the entire storefront. At the checkout line, the car is in plain view and I can get to it in about 10 seconds. The only time the car is out of my sight is when my back is turned picking up whatever I ran into the store to get.

Is this enough time for something bad to happen? Yes. The car could explode, or a nut job could smash the window and drive off, or a meteor could fall on it. The same could happen at any traffic light with me IN the car, too.

Of course, if I bring them into the store with me, in the time I am dealing with the cashier or selecting my item, there is enough time for them to pull down a display or get snatched by a nut job or the store to burst into flames or get hit by a meteor.

Compared to my boy riding a bike, or stunts I’ve seen both of them pull in the playground, or even riding home in the car every day, I consider being locked in the car in front of my corner store to be “safe”.

–jack

11

I just KNEW someone was going to come in here and defend them.

jack, in this case the kids were, I believe, IN A MALL parking lot, not outside the Kwik-e-mart. You sound like you live in a relatively small town (correct me if I’m wrong), where no one locks their doors, everyone keeps their cars unlocked…

in a city like Chicago or even a smaller one like Toledo, or the suburbs of Rochester, New York, it’s not even conceivable that you’d leave your kids out of your sight.

Yes, your kids are in danger inside the store…but they are WITH YOU, where you can do something to protect them.

jar

12

Fair enough, and my bad really.

I wasn’t directly responding to the OP–even I wouldn’t leave my two in the car out of sight.

What I was responding to was a sense I was getting from reading this thread was that there was a consensus that anyone who EVER locked a kid in a car under ANY circumstance was automatically a spawn of Satan that deserved cruel and unusual punishment and was unworthy of the title of “parent.”

Perhaps being a single parent of twins, and always being outnumbered 2 to 1, has led me to trust controlled situations (strapped into a car) much more than uncontrolled (in a store, or in a parking lot, where if they both break different directions or do different things at once I CANNOT react but to one of them at once).

And, though this isn’t that small of a town, yes, my house is unlocked, and I don’t lock my car in my driveway, and I often leave the keys in it…

I don’t know how you big city folk do it 8-).

–jack

13

To anyone who doesn’t see the issue: I recall a similar story this summer. A passerby noticed some ‘sleeping’ kids in a running car and the owner nowhere in sight. After contacting mall security, but seeing they were reluctant to break a window, the passerby broke the window himself only to find that the kids were indeed unconscious. I don’t remember hearing the end of the tale, but they were taken away by ambulance.

14

AquaPura, it sounds like you dialed into the main PD exchange, and spent quite a while on hold or being switched around.

Wrong approach. You call 911 and yell frantically “There are two kids here and I think they may be dead!” Then give the location and watch the show begin.

I have gone to an ATM machine with my car parked 10 feet away, engine running, AC on full blast, and doors locked, while my child was in it. A couple of times.

But to go into a fucking mall and leave the heater on?!? I hope they caught her and crucified her.

You can find out, you know. Call the PD and ask. It’s public information.

15

The Australian case mentioned above is a real tragedy. Two women (with a child in the back seat) park at some suburban shops. They leave the a/c on, since it is a hot day, and do their shopping together - ie one stands within sight of the car to keep an eye on it, the other does some shopping, then they swap.
There is a passage of time when both are in the shop (they say for only a minute) and incredibly the car is stolen at that precise time.
It is an area notorious for drug suppliers, and the thief just wanted some wheels to make a deal. He freaks out when he sees a kid in the back, and dumps the car in a backstreet. The child dies in the heat build-up of the 90 or so minutes it takes to find the car. The thief was just convicted of manslaughter.

As a father of 7, I can testify that the wierdest things can happen in a 60-second period when you are not watching an under-5 year old. [including a drowning in a backyard pool with the older brother and sisters swimming in the same pool, not noticing the entry of their younger sister]. Locking kids in a car and walking away is taking a risk - and eventually a risk taker is found out.

16

I have to admit, I rolled my eyes at the notion of pulling up in front of the car in case one of the kids put it in gear. What about reverse? Why didn’t anyone break off the antenna, y’know, lightning could strike the car. Anyway, I’d have more fun putting the car up on jack stands, it’s going nowhere and the lady who was chewing you out (wrongfully) would have been nailed by the cop (who would have had a great story to tell). Yeah, most people don’t have jack stands handy. My other thought was, what if you did wake the kids up? How would you like to be a child asleep in your mom’s car only to wake up to a stranger pounding on the glass!? I would have camped out by the car and inconspicuously walked away when the mother finally arrived. But then again, that’s just my non-confrontational nature.

17

It’s funny that I should say this, having just admitted to a couple of ATM violations, but if I see kids in a car with no adult, I only wait about 2 minutes before I grab my cell phone. Yes, I will look around to see if I see a parent-type heading my way, but if not, I’m calling.

18

but, dale, suppose the child had not been asleep. at least one post in this thread mentions a child “asleep” in a car that was actually not concious and needed medical attention. which is preferable, scaring the kids or letting them possibly die?