baby girl dies after being left in car overnight

This isn't a case of drunk parents falling asleep with kid left in car. neither parent were aware of baby's location for more than 12 hours?? 11:30pm til 2pm.

Antioch baby girl dies after being left in car
Henry K. Lee, Chronicle Staff Writer

Monday, April 19, 2010
Sofia Wisher of Antioch was pronounced dead after she was found in her car seat outside the In Shape Sports Club on Lone Tree Way shortly after 2 p.m. Sunday, authorities said.

An autopsy will be conducted to determine the cause of the girl's death, the Contra Costa County coroner's office said.

Sofia had been in the seat since 11:30 p.m. Saturday, said Antioch police Sgt. Diane Aguinaga. Her parents both work two jobs, and "both thought the other parent had the baby," Aguinaga said.

It was unclear which parent had last driven the station wagon and left the girl in the seat, police said. When the infant's father woke up Sunday morning, he went to the gym, "thinking all was fine" and not realizing that Sofia was in the car, Aguinaga said.

When the baby's mother got up, she realized that Sofia wasn't in her crib, police said. She called the gym, where her husband was working out. Gym staff alerted him.

He ran outside and found Sofia dead in the car, Aguinaga said. The windows were up, said police Lt. Leonard Orman.


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/19/BA241D112O.DTL&tsp=1#ixzz0lZorbqPt

The crazy runs wild and sleepless for parents at that age. No excuse, of course, but a terrible story.

...Would one parent being able to earn a living wage while the other raised the child have prevented this? Quite possible.

IMHO, IMHO, IMHO

If someone is impaired enough due to lack of sleep to leave a baby in a car seat, one should not be operating a motor vehicle in the first place.

IMHO.

It's not an easy task for the parent who stays home to care for the child, because the job of fretting about their well-being is magnified. But it's not easy for the parent who goes off to work either, especially if he or she is not bringing in enough money to have some surplus dollars to allow both parents to get out and unwind every now and then.

happened in the routine, the lack of sleep, the busy, the mind elsewhere

i can see it happen

and i am a great advocate for parental responsibility. but these events... as horribly sad as it is... it really is a noncallous shit happens. we would like to turn back the clock, oh please let us turn back the clock. and we dont get to

I can't imagine driving my car and not knowing my baby was in that car.

member isn't in the house, particularly a baby.

These people deserve prison.

They'll have some time to consider the life they threw away.

on the basis of a newspaper article.

I can't believe you're defending these assholes.

until they have heard ALL of the actual evidence. As opposed to the phrase, "left in the car for 12 hours" in a newspaper article.

Just wondering why you have such sympathy for negligent parents.

Never have been a believer in the "The guilt is punishment enough" line of thinking. If that seems vengeful, so be it. Thinking of the baby struggling for breath, not understanding why no-one helped her should be the thing that everyone thinks about and has sympathy for. NOT giving her "parents" a pat on the back for having a rough schedule.

...and accidents. You can't lower the odds to exactly 0.

When you've got a news media reporting events like this out of all of the things happening among hundreds of millions of people, there's no way for you to be able to tell the difference, especially with so little to go on, between a fluke accident that could happen to anyone once in a very rare while, and true negligence.

Just knowing this has happened will probably hurt the parents more than anything else would.

"Well, I really want to leave the baby in the car today, but if I do, I'll go to prison, so I won't"?

These people are victims of our rushed lifestyle, not criminals.

You're dealing with an expert!

:rofl:

And compared to these scumbags, yeah I am a expert.

I wouldn't leave a baby in the car for 12 hours. Laugh about that.

Hard to feel empathy when none of us wants to think we could ever make such a ghastly mistake.

About what? Having basic logic and reasoning skills?

Sorry, I'll save my empathy for the real victim of this tragedy. Not two self-centered assholes who caused the death.

I raised two sons to adulthood. Two good sons. I knew where they were every minute of the day. For a start at seven months they were both still being breastfed and my breast and I would have missed them if they were overdue for a feeding.

The most important job I ever had in my life was raising my sons to be good and healthy men. Laugh all you want at that statement and maybe slam me for being so smug. I did my job and I did it well, unlike these two idiots who managed to forget about their baby and let it die.

They are criminals, child neglect is a crime.

What happens in these cases is that a chronically sleep deprived parent running many tasks on automatic has a brain fart. If the routine is for the father to drop the kid off at day care and the mother to drive straight to work, it can happen that the mother forgets that dad tucked the kid in the car seat in her car that morning. It's hard to comprehend, but I can believe it. I was a stay at home Mom who nursed all my kids and kept a tight watch. The only time my kids had a babysitter was when I was actually giving birth to a sibling of theirs! My older kids tell me that when I took a nap, they gave the younger kids a ride down the stairs in a laundry basket, on several occasions! If I could be so exhausted as to sleep through that, I can imagine a working parent forgetting a change of routine means he or she has the baby in the car!

When I had my daughter and was the only one working for our family, I went back before 3 months were up. I remember falling asleep at my desk and inability to concentrate...but the worst part was that I actually forgot to breast feed my daughter for 3 days - I made the bottles with formula and FED her, but I forgot I was nursing! when I finally remembered I was out of milk...

so ya, and that was before her brother cam along a year later...ug

For a dead baby.

Sorry, I don't buy it. Both my parents worked their asses off. Both my sisters have kids and work their asses off. Guess what? No dead kids.

Stop making excuses for them. They let their baby die, end of story.

Just wow.

Several years ago there was an incident in my own community where an assistant principal at our middle school left her infant daughter in her van when she arrived at school in the morning. The child had already died when discovered later in the day.

The details in this case were similar to those of case after case that occurs around the country every year. Parents stressed out. One parent thinks the other has the child etc.

I started researching this phenomenon and discovered some interesting things. Researchers at several universities have determined that, under stress, your body produces chemicals that make you behave as if you have ADHD - loss of focus, memory difficulties etc.

One notable finding (at a university in Florida, IIRC) was that your memory does strange and bizarre things under certain kinds of stress. You forget things, and the VALUE of the thing you forget is irrelevant - that is, you could forget your coffee cup, or you could forget your child.

I have since thrown out all the articles/data etc. I had on this. Some on this board will dispute these findings. That is their perogative.

But here is an important point: There are devices available that reduce the likelihood of these tragedies happening. As I recall, there is a device one can attach to their key ring. Once the infant seat straps are secured, the device sounds an alarm when the driver gets more than 10 feet from the car.

Why isn't there a national awareness campaign about this in the same way those pink "breast cancer awareness" ribbons are seen everywhere?

I submit that it's because carrying one of these devices is an admission by caretakers that EVEN THEY could forget their child, a thought that most parents can't even contemplate.

Meanwhile, these tragedies continue to occur.


edit> typo

Don't have a(nother) baby if you're already working so many jobs/so sleep deprived/so stressed out you can't take care of it reliably.

abortion when they found out they were expecting again?

that continues to exist and that takes the lives of many children every year.

This exactly makes my case that there are many people who cannot conceive that anyone would leave their child in a car to die except with malice aforethought.

Did you read my entire post? What about the studies showing the effects of stress on memory and concentration?

As I said above, I had a packet stuffed with information which I carried to the school board meeting one evening. I planned to speak if comments were permitted, and try to bring some sanity to the issue.

The atmosphere was poisonous that evening. The press were there in force, and of course law enforcement, in anticipation of who-knows-what. As it was, the school board members announced they were going into executive session, stood up and exited, stage right. No doubt their lawyer had told them to utter not one word, reasonably enough from a legal point of view.

Among my articles I had a news story about a couple, both physicians, who had left their infant in their car in the parking lot of the hospital where they worked. It was a very hot day and the child died, of course.

Are we to believe that these people and ALL others to whom this happens are monsters who hate their children? If that is the case, then the number of such people surely dwarfs the number of supposed al-Quaeda sleeper cells hiding amongst the populace. Perhaps the Pentagon should try to root them out.

IMO, blaming the parents is like blaming someone for contracting cancer. There are underlying factors operating here.

Build awareness. Carry safety devices. Use the energy expended in anger to proactively try to save lives.

I left my dog in the car in the garage once for a few hours. Fortunately, the temperature was moderate and I THINK I would have heard him if he had been barking. But it made me sick.

So it's hard for me to judge these parents, certainly not on the few facts we have now.

2010 has been fucking hell for me. First, the blizzard and $1,200.00 damage to a truck in it. Lost 3 cats, 1 dog kicked the bucket Easter Sunday at 7:00 AM, S/O has "Chemo brain" and is still flippin over doggy and kitties, Tea Baggers, Gov making the small business a why bother thing etc. I'm in a daze about 70% of the time and could forget a kid, thank (your higher power here) I don't have any.

A horrible tragedy none the less~

It is hard to wrap ones brain around this type of tragedy.

My heart truly aches for these families. Truly devastating.

Prison that way the other two can grow up with out their parents and possible have the state take care of them.

maybe i'm too close to this but long story short -- neighbors were convicted of killing their child by neglect (they were innocent and the child died a natural death but they were low IQ and had no money so they had no chance in court) and to make a long story short the only child i know the fate of ended up being an abuse victim -- normal healthy people, by and large, don't volunteer to foster the children of convicted murderers

the children still living are guaranteed to be abused once they're out of the parents' hands

but burning witches is more important than children in america so be it

those who advocate prison for accident victims, i wish them and all their children what they wish for us, because that's the only way compassionless learn compassion is by self pity

It seems only black or brown people do time for neglecting babies to death in cars.

Would they leave a gallon of milk in their car that long? Carton of eggs? Or just their daughter?

and your theory is hogwash. you could also take the opposite tack and say that because the baby was white it was more valuable, so the parents should be thrown into prison.
not everything is a matter of race.

White parents are usually found to have "suffered enough." Black or brown parents usually have charges filed against them.

Judicial bias isn't my doing; they almost all always deserve criminal charges for what they did, not what color they are.

"no excuse"?

i wish for you what you wish for others -- two jobs for every member of your family, toil w/out end, sleep deprivation w.out end, and the minute you make a mistake, prison

it's what you wish for others so i'm sure you think it is fair for yourself

oh wait? it's different if it's YOU???? YOU actually get tired after working two jobs but THEY should be menial robots w. no higher minds?

I have been that exhausted, and with a serious, untreated sleep disorder as well and somehow managed not only to not leave eggs or milk in my car overnight, but I also didn't kill anyone. Amazing! Yet I'm not the only one who has managed that. Millions of people have. Gasp!

And as I recall, aren't you childless due to a 'horror' of pregnancy?

Oh, and no one was burned as a witch in the US. They were hanged.

My sister had a baby and had to work to two jobs with no husband or SO to help-out. Guess what happened? My nephew didn't die in a locked car. She stepped up and did everything she could. Which includes asking her family for help. I babysat my nephew for 3-4 nights a week for over a year while she completed nursing school.

So wish it on me and mine. We can handle it, we're not self-centered assholes like the two "parents" in the OP.

Continue making excuses for two worthless pieces of shit because you can't handle the reality of the fact that these two let their their baby die and should be punished for it.

But, since your situation is nearly identical to theirs, you have the authority to determine their level of guilt.

To never forget to not leave your baby in the car?
I think they already got that message now that their child is dead. Prisons are crowded as is and we need room for actual criminals, not tired parents who made a terrible mistake. Running over kids by parents happens too. You think the child is in the house when they are behind the car.

I have a 4 and 5 year old. I have thankfully never left them in the car by mistake. I can't imagine losing your child out of forgetfulness but it happens.

Then at least one of those parents doesn't need a second job. Sounds to me like they need to make some choices about what is worth sacrificing for, or they need to reconsider having children they're too busy to raise.

Without all the facts it makes no sense to sit here as judge and jury.

Something has to give in a situation like that.

of our second kid. He had no sleeping schedule and got up several times a night. But even so, I always knew where he was and to be truthful, I'd never leave it up to anyone else including his father to do that for me.

So horrible.

That what gets me with this case. They got home at 11:30pm, they went all night and thru the next morning without either one laying eyes on the baby. Is that possible?

:shrug:

There's got to be more here Like drugs or something.

nt

the longest stretch.

And no, I won't try 3 or 4 times, been there, done it already, have the t-shirt. lol

ETA: And that's just eating. What about changing? What about just welfare checks. What the hell.

until there is an investigation. No charges have been brought (as of last night anyway).

can sleep through the night. Most likely not 12 hours though.

I also can't imagine their 2 year old letting them sleep that long. Heck, my kids were in their teens before I got to sleep til 8:00 a.m. on the weekends.

:woohoo:

But no, that diaper would be falling off of that poor baby. Loaded down!!

It's been 20 years since my kids were that young and I still know exactly how wonderful that must have felt.

I still remember when mine were 2 and 3, coming into the bedroom at 6:00 on Saturday and Sunday mornings, pulling on my arm, saying, "Fix my breakfast!" I'd lie there for about 2 minutes pretending to be asleep but the cacophony was so horrendous that I couldn't take it any longer than that.

Here's hoping that your baby continues to let you sleep. Funny, but when I was in college, 8:45 on the weekend would have been early. But once you've had babies, 8:45 is really being able to sleep in, isn't it?

Now it is soooo late. She did go to bed late the night before because we were at a friend's house, and she was playing hard. She is a good sleeper though. It took a long time for it to get that way, and we will hopefully be adding to our family in the near future, so I will take all of those 8:45 mornings I can get!!!

let their parents sleep til 2:00 p.m. No way in hell.

Even if the kid was in the crib sleeping, you pop in and check on it.

When I was babysitting my nephew overnight I used check constantly.

Is that right? Your experience with infants is "when I was babysitting my nephew?"

And you're the one yelling and screaming for prison. Not surprising.

Yeesh.

Their neglect led to a child's death. So yeah, I think they should rot in prison.

You apparently don't give a shit.

means they don't give a shit? Interesting.

how both of them could go that long without realizing that they hadn't heard anything out of the baby.

Almost the exact same situation -- But the baby in that case was just forgotten about for an afternoon (a very hot afternoon) versus overnight(!)

Please - people manage not to forget groceries and other things they they're interested in. If you need a reminder that you have a baby in the car, you probably shouldn't have one.

Shit happens. Some kind of alert would reduce how often said shit happened. Net result: less dead babies.

until noon and 2:00 p.m. No way in hell could that possibly happen.

is some kind of alarm that can sound when the car detects a weight left in the carseat. Perhaps some sensor that can be tucked behind the baby in the seat that signals the horn to honk if the engine is off for more than, say, three minutes. It seems like in most of theses cases the parents zone out and are unaware they left their baby behind.

Someone should really invent this.

I wonder if it was accidental. Or something else.

Like when I read that someone got shot while cleaning their gun.

Whatever the cause, it's just sad.

:hi:

Most work by setting off alarms on key fobs. If a parent walks away from the car and the device senses weight in the carseat, or heat, or a buckled belt, or a number of other things, it sets off the fob alarm. There are other models that beep the horn, and even one with a built in cell unit that will call 911.

The problem is that every parent falls into the "I would never do that, because I ALWAYS know where my baby is" trap, and nobody buys them.

extended to 10-15 mins. or so. I remember getting sick young ones out of the car after a trip to the pediatrician's office and it took that long to get the older in the house and somewhat settled to then go back and get the infant, who was going to require holding, rocking etc. once out of the carseat and in the house.

As has been stated here, the stigma attached to even admitting that you COULD forget your child prevents parents from using them.

There has got to be more awareness of this issue.

I'm old and forgetful so I can see how it could happen to an older person. But I don't know how that could happen when you have a 7 month old. For one thing, babies that young need constant care and you'd think that they would notice that the baby wasn't there, crying, needing to be fed, a changed diaper, etc. and the sister asking about her. It just doesn't make any sense to me...

baby? With babies and lil kids you 'peek in' on them constantly. CONSTANTLY.

Dad gets up early, doesn't wake Mom, doesn't check on Baby who presumably is in the crib asleep, and takes off for the gym.

He is too tired to have even thought about his child but has energy for the gym? He and his wife 'have' to work two jobs each but have money to pay for a gym?

There is a priority problem here.

how many times does Joe Average Dad "check" the baby when it is sleeping? And YES, I know SOME do. But Dads have a tendency not to check kids who are awake, as long as they are quiet (hoo hoo). I don't find it the least bit surprising that Dad didn't check the sleeping baby.

has two other kids, yet fits in time to go to the gym?

Poor little baby, clearly regarded as "somebody else's problem." Seems like so many tragedies like this occur when everyone thought someone else was watching the kid.

isn't his workout more important than that nuisance of a baby? what an a--hole.

and got flabby and overweight, the obesity crowd would be all over him. Talk about a can't win situation!
Aren't parents encouraged to make time for themselves?

in 2004 I had a mother in assisted living and a disabled brother in a nursing home.
I had to take my own ;personal leave and vacation time to visit them in Dallas ever;y year which I did without any unhappiness. My brother had been warned that if he didn't stop smoking he would have another stroke (he had had two). He chose to ignore it. I had no choice for him...

My point here is that we all make choices. If we feel we are incapable of making achoice then we go to mental health professionals who help us sort out our feelings and make quality choices...I don't see this happening here...

Yeah, fuck their kids. He needed to work on his abs.

:eyes:

them, wringing their hands about their "busy overstressed lives" and so they're victims and such shit. If he had time to go to the fucking gym on a Sunday morning, he had time to check on his own child. Period. And he didn't check with his wife before leaving to ask a quick question about the kids? He didn't know the baby was in the damn car when he drove to the gym? Are you KIDDING me? Neither of those details seems remotely possible to me if you're any kind of a real parent at all.

When my son was little, I don't ever remember a time going twelve fucking hours without checking on him at least once, usually more, even when under the most stress. And I've known plenty of parents with very stressful, demanding schedules and they somehow managed to keep good tabs on their kids and make it a priority, certainly over a fucking gym. This is nothing but inexcusable negligence. Period. The ONLY victim here is the poor child, whose last hours must have been excruciating.

dad in name only. I can't imagine even once not being strongly needing to know where my baby is before I go somewhere.

I've told this story before. 6 month-old kept me up most of the night with colic. In the a.m, desperate for sleep, I took her for a ride in the car. I drove through a park near our house, a loop of roads.

Baby finally fell asleep. I drove home, parked the car, went inside in sleep-deprived stupor, and had to pee. While doing my business, I remembered.

Now, probably 3 minutes had passed. My daughter was fine---but I understand how it happens.

twelve fucking HOURS. That's just plain inexcusable negligence.

:banghead:

:banghead:

inquiring to the other about the baby.

picture both of us forgetting a baby at the same time. I can sort of see forgetting to drop a baby off at day care and going to work with the baby in the backseat--there's nothing to remind you of the baby at work. But to go home, and take care of a toddler (they have a 2 year old), and see bottles and diaper bags, and NOT remember the new baby?

for a few minutes but after 7 months, how is that possible?

Maybe that's just because I have a boy, and he was a climber and an escape artist. I was a little twitchy until he settled down a bit. ;)

Or worse, silence punctuated by occasional giggles.

lol

was always cause for suspicion.

The kids are grown and married now, but I have two young German Shepherds. Same deal. When it's too quiet around here, I HAVE to check to see what they're up to.

One time they dumped baby powder all over themselves in the bathroom when I was making lunch for myself...this was at 2 and 3.

lol

He just turned nine yesterday, he's not nearly so boisterous now, but he's clumsy, so I still can't have nice things.

But that's a lot of broken china later. lol

Quiet is only good when they are in their crib.

7 month old would have a nighttime routine of sorts (unlike a newborn). How do you not think to yourself, when you get home: "Now I've got to feed her, bathe her, change her and get her into her crib"?

Been there, done that. There were points when I didn't have conversations with my wife for days. Work. Work. Work. Work. Eat. Work. Work. Work. Work. Sleep. Sleep. Work. Work. Work. Work. That's your life.

16 hours without talking isn't unusual in that situation.

much sooner. It's like an internal alarm clock that makes you anxious until you see that the kiddo is all right. :shrug:

I don't think it's quite as unusual as you seem to think it is.

let alone, do it that way myself. That's just me. And we had the same number of jobs and kids and were really young and sort of stupid, into the bargain.

thought was watching the baby.

I may not understand it, but I understand it.

they were old enough to hire their own lawyers. lol

No matter what the deal is, my heart goes out to that family.

them... probably like this woman, trusting her husband has the baby, the husband thinking the wife had the baby, they probably switched off between shifts... it's a horrible tragedy.

could never have gotten into a car not knowing his baby was in that baby seat.

Never ever.

There's something else going on here. One person making a series of mistakes, maybe. But two people making this series of mistakes, no way.

A little different from the situation you describe.

and the next morning I couldn't figure out where she was. Fortunately, it wasn't hot weather and she was fine.

I can't imagine leaving a baby in the car all night, though. That's distracted beyond belief.

None. And yes, I turn into Judgy McJudgerstein when I hear these stories.

This open and shut neglect.

They're self-centered scum.

I do not see that having 4 jobs is an excuse. At a certain point before it gets to THIS you realize that you don't have a life and the kids are just too demanding. Then one or two of those jobs gets dropped. You then get more affordable housing or move in with parents or get a loan from parents or figure out a way to work from home. During WW2 my husband was a toddler and his sister an infant, dad was away in the war, mother and kids had to split up, couldn't afford a place of their own...she and daughter went to live with her parents and he went to live with his dad's. It is what people do during hard times with no money...mercifully his dad survived and came home and then things got better.

I think there is something wrong mentally with those parents...

I gave up a high paying job that was paying the bills but ruining the family when my 2nd son was about a year old. We just couldn't do it all in that way. I took in someone else's baby instead during the day and trading off the money for the sanity probably saved us from a lot of bad things.

If somebody else had him (never for that long- I didn't have a very good breast pump so I couldn't be away from him for more than one or maybe two feeds, max) I would call to check on him. Parents tend to do that because they give a shit and want to make sure their kid is doing well with their caregiver and doesn't need anything.

I can't imagine any circumstances, no matter how sleep deprived, where I wouldn't have known where the hell he was for fourteen and a half hours.

Answer that question and you'll know who is really responsible for the baby's death. Exhausted people don't think clearly and underpaid people are always exhausted.

However, it's easy to condemn the parents, so that is what will be done.

to know when s/he is too tired to function?

how tired we are, we are still expected to show up and function for our assigned hours.

Again, the problem is the fact that they were overworked, exhausted, and not thinking clearly.

Those last 3 words are very important.

But it was still my job to manage that, not anyone else's.

And you bet I'm the last one that will argue that that mother or those parents shouldn't have more value in their roles as parents. The very last one.

...to put food on the table to feed their children. To put a roof over their heads. To put clothes on their backs and diapers on their butts. Four minimum wage jobs in Antioch will barely get you by.

When you're drop dead tired but you know that your kids will go hungry if you don't put in another shift, you ignore your suffering and put in another shift. That's a decision that millions of Americans make every day.

house was so long...really, a 7 month old baby doesn't require SOMETHING in that amount of time? REally?

What I think you are saying is that the parents were so sleep deprived that they were psychotic. I had sleep deprived psychosis in the ICU but I saw things and interpreted them very differently. Perhaps that happened to them. Perhaps they thought they had the baby with them but they really didn't. If you don't get enough REM sleep for a period of time that could happen. But does it in daily life, as opposed to ICU psychosis? I don't know. Sounds like a defense in a criminal case...

You don't know what the income of this family is or whether they're really working minimum wage jobs. I note that Daddy could afford a gym membership, though.

No family has both parents juggling four jobs out of choice. Especially in Antioch. The fact that they're renters who left the kid in the car after dragging their clothes home from the laundromat at midnight is also a good sign that they aren't exactly wealthy.

And the gym? ISS is a largish regional gym here in California famous for being family friendly (they actually throw meatheads out). They have childcare facilities that make most preschools envious, rock climbing walls for kids and teenagers, and back when I had a membership, it only cost $19 a month. I don't see anything unusual at all about them having a membership there.

the next day. Those two things had nothing to do with "taking another shift" or ignoring their own suffering in order to feed their children.

And they didn't care to get their lazy asses up to change those diapers and feed them breakfast. Or even lunch, since the mother didn't drag her butt out of bed until 2:00 p.m.

they obviously don't NEED two jobs each, or he wouldn't be able to afford membership at a gym. But when you GOTTA have that gym membership, that widescreen TV, that week in Maui, you work two jobs to do it.

It's not unlikely that they established a lifestyle in better times, and rather than reduce their standard of living with the coming of the babies and harder economic times they tried to maintain by taking on more. Backing off from 80k yr to 65k yr is unthinkable to some people. (I say, with no actual knowledge of their situation).

A lot of health plans pay for it. He could be recovering from an injury or he could need to work out to stay safe on one of his jobs.

Don't judge before you have the facts.

I work at 1 1/2 jobs, and i can't afford a gym membership, and my healthplan would NEVER cover it. If he works at a place where gym membership is covered by his healthplan, he's working somewhere that pays a hell of a lot better than I am - that's one of those plan perks that makes for 'cadillac' plans.

WHY does he have two jobs, and WHY does she have two jobs? If they NEED it because they are underwater on their mortgage, they should be cutting OUT crap like gym memberships - it's only logical.

And frankly, EVERYONE here is judging without facts - at least I admitted it. Your scolding is uncalled for.

and it's on a month to month basis so there was no contract to lock into. I think the annual fee is $19.00. I signed up when it was running a special & the annual fee was a $1.00.


And, my employer does cover participating gym memberships - even though we have horrible health insurance. They actually cover places that are more expensive and have more amenities than where I go - though my gym isn't on their list so I pay the cost out of pocket.

Who knows? I anxiously await the parents' explanation. I think it's entirely possible it was all just a horrible accident!

Here's a scenario:

Spouse 1 gets home from work and, assuming Spouse 2 has the baby, goes to bed. Spouse 2 gets home, finds Spouse 1 asleep and assuming the baby had been with Spouse 1 all this time, falls right into bed. Both parents sleep through the night because they're completely exhausted. The husband wakes up before the wife, assumes she must have gotten up at least once overnight to check on the baby, so doesn't check on her (they were probably super-neurotic with the first kid, but like most parents, became much less so with the subsequent children).

The part where I become a little skeptical is that he didn't notice the kid in the car. The baby must have already been dead at this point or she would have made some noise after being in a car all night long. But why wouldn't he have seen her? Missing rear-view mirror maybe? Who knows? These things have happened before, so I guess it's possible.

Anyway, I think we should hold off judgment until we hear the rest of the story.

Keep the workers healthy and able to perform their jobs. Too bad it didn't keep this guy mentally and cognitively at the top of his game.

Sad, sad, sad.

And I know I'll probably get attacked for saying this.

It's really more that it's much more comforting to blame the parents always.

I read an article a while back by someone who had investigated a number of these sorts of incidents and they made the point that it could happen to anyone, most of us don't want to believe we could be capable of doing something like that so we have to blame the parents entirely in order that we maintain our own illusions..

A link to the article.

http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet/feature/2009/03/09/fatal_distraction

during their kids' most vulnerable years or no one would undertake such a dangerous project.

or still fewer of them would survive.

:evilgrin:

LOL

I'm seeing a lot of smug, "I'd never do that," when we've all been tired enough at one point or another that a silent, sleeping baby might just be left in the car.

I had coworkers on 12 hour night shifts that pulled into their garages, left the garage, door, car door, and everything wide open while they got no farther than the couch. That's in the inner city, folks.

I said exhausted people don't think clearly. Actually, they don't think, at all.

The one burglary we had was because I was too tired to remember to lock the front door.

Whatever happened, these people will never be the same.

and any other kids they might have will be put into foster care because they'll be labeled neglectful instead of dead dog tired.

I guess there are two types of people in the world, those who want to think it could never happen to them and those who are a little amazed it never did.

Good article.

Dad had gone to the gym. He had time to go to the gym? Really?

I maybe have time, but not the energy. Thats amazing. How could he move?

Its sad people have to work 2 jobs, and be a two income family.

Not for me, mind you. But my husband goes to the gym to relax.

something doesn't compute

She said it would help my cognitive state. Sadly, it didn't seem to do it for this guy. What a tragedy.

i was hyper-aware when my daughter was a baby (in fact, she claims i still am)so it's hard to figure out how people are such stupid, negligent parents. what's their excuse?

i do understand it.

not a right and wrong of it. but i understand

it's amazing that there aren't more tragedies

we have unrealistic ideas abt human physiology in this society, DAMN few of us are martha stewart (sleeps 4 hrs a night) -- most of us need 8 or 9 hrs a night of sleep or we're psycho and believe me, i've looked into this, it is genetics, you CANNOT change how much sleep you need a night without taking a dangerous drug like cocaine or amphetamine -- i've seen some kids do OK with ritalin/adderal but they don't themselves have kids and i'm not confident that going 72 hrs w.out sleep on ANY drug is a good decision -- the drug i tried was amphetamine (dexadrine) and the effects on me were just dangerous to anyone around me so i'm not gonna try any others...i'm gonna sleep the hours my body needs to sleep and when i can't, i'm not gonna drive, i'm not gonna care for babies

if you're both working two jobs, AND you have a new baby in the home, you're both sleep deprived, and a tragedy is almost inevitable

in this case, the baby paid, in other cases, you rear end somebody and a stranger pays, but SOMEBODY pays if you're working 16 hrs a day

as for jail time, that should be for whoever created a society where one couple with a baby has to work four jobs to put food on the table, but my perfect world doesn't exist

protect yourself people, if you have to work two jobs per person to support a child REFUSE to reproduce and create more cannon fodder for the elite

they'll keep exploiting us as long as we keep breeding, the upper middle class/smart people no longer breed, what does that tell you??? there is NO benefit to having children in this society, and guess what, if you don't bother, somebody else will do it for you anyways, the planet is in no danger of suddenly becoming uninhabited by humans

don't take on the huge and unthankful job of having kids in a world where there's ZERO upside

And it's always a tragedy.

The American lifestyle is the ultimate cause, IMO.

they both just wanted to sleep, poor things

At least once a year, there's a case where someone who is over-worked and underslept goes to work and completely blanks on the fact there's an infant or sleeping toddler in the backseat, on a 90 degree day. I have a hard time condemning them when there's nowhere to go to, except perhaps an Amish colony, where it's not reinforced that we MUST have all these things that make us debt-slaves.

got almost to work and realized my kid was still in the car with me. I forgot to drop off my 3 year old at nursery school. She was quiet all the way to town and at a red light she asked where we were going ha. This really scared me.

When my kids were babies, I was constantly thinking about them and knew their whereabouts, I was even so paranoid that I would call dh and made sure he had the babies with him and made sure he was taking care of them. Horrible tragedy, poor little one. I don't know how to feel about the parents. Surely this baby cried at some time or another, they didn't hear her?

In April? I have a hard time believing hypothermia. What caused her death, then?

nt

Or explain how they slept so long with a small toddler in the house without remembering to check the baby.

Those people should have been tested because their story doesn't add up.

be discovered in the autopsy. You're right, tho, about the parents. The neglect was so egregious that it is not credible that they just "forgot." Strung out on drugs seems could one strong reason. I don't see normally functioning parents all of a sudden being "forgetful" about having a 7 month old baby. I suppose sleep deprivation could put them both in a kind of fugue state where they could simply become unaware for 14 hours that they actually had a baby to care for...but both of them at once? That's so wildly improbable...

How do you forget you have two children for more than 12 hours and there's two of you? :shrug:

Something is fishy here. Just curious to see what the autopsy says.

It also seems to me that the parents might have figured that they would get a pass from a lot of people if they characterized themselves as hardworking people trying to keep afloat in perious economic times...sort of an updated Dickensian thing...so I am very suspicious of this whole thing...

Child-safety experts say parents of such young children often are sleep-deprived. Nationally, an average of 36 children a year die when they are trapped in overheated cars. Some get into the cars on their own and some are intentionally left by parents, but the majority are forgotten by a parent or caregiver who fails to glance in the backseat.

Advocates say such reminders as keeping a stuffed animal in the car seat and placing it in the front seat when a child is in back can be a memory aid for a frazzled parent.

"One of the huge dangers, of course, with a 7-month-old, rear-facing in the back seat - the seat doesn't look any different if it's filled or not," said Janette Fennell, founder and president of Kids and Cars, a nonprofit group that promotes public education to prevent children from being killed in or near cars.

These types of tragedies have involved doting parents from all walks of life, including college professors and dentists, Fennell said.

"The biggest mistake that anybody can make in this situation is to think it can't happen to them or their family," Fennell said. "It can, and it does."

there is an answer: PUT THE KID BACK IN THE FRONT SEAT WHERE THE PARENT CAN SEE IT.

Lots of naysayers to this...safety issues...but if the kid can be seen, they stay alive.

... and I quote from the article...



Before that horrible discovery, these "parents", seeing the door to this infant's bedroom was closed, went to bed, each thinking the other put her to bed?

This is too much. What possibly can NOT possess you, after being away from a 7 month old for THAT long of an interval, not to even look in on her?

Yes, indeed... life sure did bless you two brain dead fuckers.

"video game enthusiast". They can blot out the world for hours

The fact that they didn't go to bed until 3 am having worked two jobs and having two small kids seems a bit odd. As if something else had to be in play. The video games may explain it.

My heart goes out to both of them and to that precious baby.

winning article about this subject

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/27/AR2009022701549.html?sid=ST2009030602446


And his story behind the article

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2009/03/04/DI2009030402198.html

"Any writer who claims to be completely unbiased is lying either to you or to himself; we are humans, we have opinions and prejudices, we hold certain assumptions about life. The absolute best we can do -- and it is usually enough -- is to make an honest effort to prevent those opinions, prejudices and assumptions from hijacking our words. As it happens, I went into this story with an overwhelming empathy for the parents whose inattention led to the deaths of their children. I believed it could happen to anyone, and I believe that because it almost happened to me. Twenty-five years ago, I almost killed my daughter.

In the early 1980s I was living in Miami, working as an editor for the Miami Herald. I got to work by car, driving down Biscayne Boulevard, then hanging a left at the Herald building. This routine seldom varied; when it did, it was when I had morning daughter duty, meaning that instead of turning left, I turned right, got on a highway, and drove a few more miles to the daycare center. One day I turned left, made another left, as customary, and pulled into the Miami Herald parking lot. As I searched for a space, from the back seat, Molly said something. She was almost three. Until that moment, I'd had no memory at all that she was in that car.

I can't recall if, like many of the parents in my article, I was particularly stressed that morning, or mentally lost in some problem from work. I know there was no distracting cellphone conversation, because cellphones hadn't been invented. What I retain of that moment is the indelible memory of staring slack-jawed at the little girl in the backseat, and feeling a powerful rush of physical nausea. This was Miami in the summer. Molly would not have survived fifteen minutes in that car. I sat there breathing heavily, fighting for self-control. I probably forced a smile and said something cheerful and dad-like. And then, as though nothing at all had happened, I left the parking lot and headed for the highway. No harm done! Just the start of an ordinary day!

You may have a question. I'll answer it simply. No, something like this does not go away. It haunts. Six years after that day, I wrote a play. It was about a man who had who had accidentally caused grievous injury to someone else; there was a backstory, about a baby left to die in a car.

When the news broke last summer about the death of Chase Harrison, I knew I had to write this story, whether I really wanted to or not. Like actors, writers know that genuine emotion is a valuable asset to draw on, not one that you lightly discard. If this article seemed to be presented with more restraint than some of my other magazine cover stories, it is probably because this was the end result of a writer fighting for a sense of control.

One more thing, before we get to some of your questions. I did not tell my wife about that moment in the parking lot, not for years, not until half a year ago when I began working on this story and needed to explain why it was keeping me awake nights. And I didn't tell Molly about it until just a couple of months ago; oddly, I found that 25 years after the day no harm was done, I couldn't look her in the eye. "

It was difficult to read...I'm emotionally drained...
Yet I hope many more will take the time....



peace~

What a tragedy. :cry:

Even though their own situations are identical to that of the Aguinaga's

How else could so many be so certain if not for intimate knowledge and understanding they have from wearing the same shoes?

until noon and 2:00 p.m. That would NEVER happen. Ever.

of mistakes with two AWOL parents.

And no, I don't buy that their two jobs a piece had anything to do with it.

I flat out do not believe their story. The dad wakes up at noon. The mom wakes up at 2:00 p.m. On what planet do 2 year olds nad 7 month olds allow their parents to sleep in until the afternoon?

I say they're liars.

not even if Grovelbot was doing lap dances in the Lounge.

The mom of a 2 year old and a 7 month old doesn't wake up until after 2:00 p.m.???

The older kid would have been awake and screaming for breakfast LONG before their parents supposedly woke up. And once the older child was up, somebody would have gotten the baby up to change her and feed her, too.

Or vice versa. But no way in HELL would TWO children, 2 and under, let their parents sleep until noon and 2:00 p.m.

without thinking about that other child.

about leaving the baby in the carseat the night before. It's the next morning that's the crucial time period here. As long as the temperature didn't go too low during the night, the baby would have survived sleeping in the car overnight.

The focus in the article was on how HOT it got the next day, over 110 in the car, not on how COLD it got the night before.

So, if the parents had just done the things that even terribly exhausted parents do - getting up and feeding and changing babies while half asleep - then that baby would have survived.

pretty much says it all. Too exhausted trying to support themselves to know which end is up.

Maybe one parent working a living wage, or 2 parents working one job each with different shifts.

How very, very sad.

Babies don't care HOW tired the parent is. They don't even KNOW how tired the parents are. They just know they're hungry and/or need to be changed NOW.

have been up relatively early with the baby and toddler, because little kids and babies DO NOT sleep in....ever...

in the morning? When our kids were babies we were lucky to stay up til midnight on New Year's Eve. There are way too many things that don't make sense in this story.

1. They each assume the other brought the baby in from the car and neither checks to make sure.

2. They're exhausted from working 2 jobs nad having 2 babies yet they stay up til 3:00 a.m.

3. The husband wakes up at noon and leaves the house without checking on the kids or feeding them and changing the baby's diaper and doesn't wake his wife up so that she can care for the babies while he's gone.

4. The mother sleeps until 2:00 p.m. without getting up to check on the kids, even the one they claim is a light sleeper who frequently wakes them up.

5. Apparently the 2 year old didn't wake either parent up to be fed before 2:00 p.m., either, which would prompt SOMEBODY to check on the baby.

they totally lost track of who was doing what.

Personally, I see this story more as a sad comment on how desperate times have become. That 2 parents each had to work 2 jobs to support themselves. I can pretty well imagine how exhausted they must have been.

Maybe if some of the holier-than-thou set around here had to walk a mile or two in someone else's shoes they'd get it. :shrug:

and slept until noon and 2:00. The dad gets up and goes to work out. He didn't get up and take care of his babies. He left to go take care of HIMSELF and what HE wanted. The mom didn't drag her ass out of bed until 2:00 in the afternoon.

So don't give ME any bullshit about tired parents. I KNOW about tired parents. I WAS an exhausted parent, with 2 babies 15 months apart, working AND going to college full time. And let me tell you buddy, there was NEVER a time that I slept until 2:00 in the afternoon, leaving my babies to fend for themselves. Nope. I got up, fed them, changed them and stayed AWAKE to take care of them.

You're damned right I have NOT walked in those parents' shoes. I did the RIGHT thing in actually CARING FOR my babies no matter what. If they had BOTHERED to get their asses up and take care of their children they just might have NOTICED that their baby wasn't in her crib early the next morning. And just MAYBE they would have gone to the car to look for her. And just MAYBE she would have lived.

:eyes:

when the shoe is on the other foot. Buh bye. :hi:

Something is off.

I am a paranoid parent. My child is always in my view unless she is in her crib. If my husband goes to pick her up from daycare instead of me, I always call and make sure he did. He would never forget, but it is out of his routine, and like I said, I am paranoid. I also know parents who aren't as paranoid as I am since they have 3 or 4 kids. They've relaxed more as parents. I can't imagine 12 hours going by without wondering about my baby. Even if I knew she was with my husband, I am calling to check on her.

Again, I think we need more details. It is tragic though. Just sad.

Their 2 year old would have been screaming for breakfast that morning at some point. And AT that point the parent(s) would have gotten the 7 month old up to change her. That's just normal routine for parents with 2 babies - even exhausted parents. And that dad wasn't too exhausted to go work out, was he?

And once the 2 year old is up, the parents are also up. You don't leave a 2 year old running around the house while you're asleep. The noise of the 2 year old would have gotten the 7 month old up for sure. And if it didn't, then they would have to have known something was dreadfully wrong.

This whole story is bullshit, IMO. I don't say they're horrible, neglectful parents for leaving the baby in the car the night before. I can sort of understand that mistake. (Not really, but I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt, anyway.)

I say they're horrible, neglectful parents for what happened the next morning. Unless they're deathly ill, dead drunk or high, no decent parent could possibly do what these parents did. There is no "sleep til noon and 2:00 p.m." luxury for parents of 2 babies. Ever. No matter how tired the parents are.

I was the same way, I used to call my husband too ha. Children are too precious and a parent can't be too careful. I was and still am considered a paranoid parent, and my kids are nearly grown and one is grown :)....it gets a little easier as they get older, then it starts all over again when they are teenagers, then eases up, then when they go off to college it starts over.

This is a really tragic and sad situation. I just have a hard time believing they didn't even check on the baby, wouldn't she need a diaper change or feeding? that is a little strange. Plus, the baby had to be hungry, I find it hard to believe they didn't wonder why the baby didn't cry to be fed?, also the baby had to have been crying at some point, I am not sure where this car was parked, but wouldn't an adult or someone not hear this baby? It's a strange situation.

Was she a crying mess? :cry: So sad and senseless.

Sofia Wisher, 7 months old, was sitting in her car seat in her parents' Toyota station wagon when the family pulled up to its Antioch home late Saturday after doing laundry at a relative's home. Each parent thought the other would be taking Sofia inside.

Tragically, neither did.

Sofia spent the night in the car and was still strapped in her seat when her 25-year-old father, identified by neighbors and public records as Cameron Wisher, awoke at noon Sunday and went to the gym, authorities said.

When the infant's 26-year-old mother, Sara Wisher, woke up and realized at about 2 p.m. that her baby wasn't in her crib, she frantically called the In-Shape Sport Club on Lone Tree Way, less than 2 miles away. Alerted by gym staff, the father ran to the car.

It was too late. Sofia was dead after being left in the car for more than 14 hours, police said Monday.

---------
Sofia had been in the seat since 11:30 p.m. Saturday, when the family returned to its three-bedroom home on Plumleigh Avenue after doing laundry, police said. The parents took their older daughter, who turned 2 in February, and the laundry out of the station wagon, but each thought the other was bringing Sofia inside, police said.

Girl was a light sleeper
The parents, both of whom work two jobs, went to bed about 3 a.m. Each saw the door to their infant's room closed and assumed the other had put her in her crib, Orman said.

The parents told police that Sofia was a "light sleeper, so it wasn't their practice to be going in there all night checking on her, because she'd wake up," Orman said.

After Sofia was found dead, Contra Costa's Child Protective Services agency placed the couple's 2-year-old daughter into protective custody, authorities said.





Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/20/MN241D112O.DTL#ixzz0lferD200

Especially parents who also work 2 jobs apiece? I smell an even bigger rat. Nothing about their story makes any kind of sense. Everything about their story says they're horrible parents.

I can see if they went home and passed out from exhaustion, but they were up till 3 am. Doesn't pass the smell test.

They didn't make sure the baby was brought in from the car. They didn't check on the baby even once for the hours they were still awake. They didn't get up to feed and change the baby. They didn't get up to feed and change their 2 year old either, since if they had they just "might" have peaked in on their little one. The father left the house without checking on the kids, feeding the kids, changing the kids, and without waking his wife up to make sure someone was watching the kids while he was gone.

What the hell kind of parents of 2 babies don't wake up until noon (the dad) and 2:00 p.m. (the mom)? Shitty parents, that's who.

and I don't buy it. Why would any parent just assume the other had the baby when they got home from doing laundry? And continue to assume the other put the baby to bed, and assume the other did any diaper changing or anything else needed during the night, and assume the baby was in her crib the next morning and blithely go off to the gym... sorry, no. No decent parent just makes all these assumptions for that long without checking for themselves for their own peace of mind. No decent parent just assumes the other has the baby without making sure. No decent parent doesn't make sure they KNOW who's watching out for the baby and if they can't remember to immediately find out.

They forgot about the baby for about 14 hours! Didn't it even occur to them at some point that the baby needed feeding or changing? Didn't they just want to cuddle the baby during that time. Poor little baby. No, I don't think they should be charged with any crime because they will suffer enough. But I don't think they should have any more babies till one parent can be with the child 24/7. They have proven they can't manage to work/play and raise a baby at the same time.

I'm sick of bad parents. The other day at the feed store this dad watched as his son punched the baby chicks. One chick was knocked senseless and the dad just stood there. (I stopped the boy). Both his sons were out of control and he ignored them.