sheilamia

Every so often you read a story similar to this one and it is never an easy read.  Whenever this happens locally, it takes me a few days to get over it.  I can’t stop thinking and empathizing with the parents from the bottom of my heart.  I cannot even begin to imagine the agony, guilt and sadness they must have to deal with.  Not to mention the affect such a tragedy would have on the relationship.

Now that I am expecting my own little one, the story has hit even harder.

You see, I will be the first to admit that I can be quite scatterbrained.  I am forgetful, plagued with short-term memory, and tend to operate on a moment-to-moment basis.  I hate to write this, but I could see this happening to me, no matter how much I tell myself I would NEVER EVER let it.

Apparently the laws were changed in the 90′s, requiring that child seats to be installed in the back seat, rather than the front seat.  Apparently deployed airbags in the front seat can cause child and baby fatalities.  Obviously it never occurred to anyone that moving child seats to the back would result in so many fatality cases of forgotten children left inside a parked car.

It would be great if they could develop some kind of technology, like a remote control that beeps in the event you close your car door and baby is still in the car seat.

These occasions seem to occur way too often for my liking.  You’d think there would be more of a focus to find a way to prevent such disastrous events.