TN - Timothy Reid, 15 mos, dies in hot car, Chattanooga, 1 May 2007

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. - A 1-year-old boy died after being left alone in a car for hours as temperatures soared into the 80s, and his father was charged with negligent homicide, police said.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070502/ap_on_re_us/toddler_heat_death_1

Timothy Reid was found unresponsive by his father, Robert Reid, Tuesday afternoon, nearly seven hours after Reid had parked the car and went to work. Emergency workers pronounced the toddler dead at the scene and said the temperature inside the car was 142 degrees.

I'm sorry, but how in the world do you leave your child in the car??? These stories always blow my mind. How does this happen? How do you not drop your kid off, how do you walk into work and go about your day? How do you not have that nagging feeling that you forgot to do something?
Why don't these people wonder why they got to work early? Uh, maybe they missed a damn spot along the way.........................

Did this child not cry? At 15 months old my son would cry. Did no one going out for lunch in the afternoon hear or notice this child? Did Mommy never talk to Daddy that morning about daycare? (I always call my husband on my way to work after I drop my son off and he'll ask me how Bobby was, ie, did he cry when I dropped him off, was he in a good mood)

Seriously, WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE????

I don't have kids, so forgive my ignorance, but maybe a policy for daycare centers to call parents to see where the child is if they don't arrive??? Sort of like school? Call both of the parents at home and work. I don't know, but it seems like it could be a good start.

So sad that it's just the beginning of warmer weather and I fear we'll be hearing about more of these.

How bad is it that my first thought upon reading the subject line was 'here we go again'?....... After all, it's already spring.

Poor baby.

this makes me physically sick...

Actually, Here we go again was going to be my title. It was my first thought too.

But then I was thinking, that these angel babies shouldn't be all lumped together. The (idiotic more worried about getting to work, no time to think about the kids, poor excuse for a human being - let alone parent) parents should be lumped together in a here we go again statement. Wasn't sure how to differentiate the two in my post, guess I just did.

ya know it's sad when we see a title like this and automatically think "here we go again"....but we all do because this is happening over & over again. How can parents just forget their child? I just don't understand. :banghead:

And as bad as it is to forget...can you even imagine doing it on purpose? Neither could I until I watched our local news at noon today. A man from my area left his 11 month old in the car while he went into the mall to do some shopping. The temp got up to about 84 degrees here yesterday. In the heat of the day, in the car, they estimated the temp to be about 100 degrees. He was compassionate enough to leave the window cracked, however.:loser:

Luckliy, a shopper walking by heard the baby crying and called the police. The police tried for an HOUR to find the parent...finally, he came out of the mall. They arrested him and gave the baby to family members. The baby is doing fine but the daddy wouldn't be if I was the momma! First, I think I'd have to b*tch smack him real hard then I'd have him punished to the fullest extent that the law would allow. AND he would never be allowed to be alone with the child again. I don't know what will happen to him but I hope they make him suffer. What he did is just so wrong. Poor baby.

I was at the mall yesterday at lunch time and noticed the police cars around and wondered what was going on...now I know.

But I have learned a valuable lesson from this....I think we all need to be extra vigilant this hot season and watch/listen for babies in cars. Obviously, we can't trust thier parents to do right by them. Makes me mad as hell.

ETA: Here is the link to this story:
http://www.nbc25.com/content/fulltext/?sid=c25791b68e68db2c098ce810f803c89e&cid=11520

I am always crushed for the child and the parents when this happens. I've never done it, but I can understand this type of mistake with all my heart.

Prayers and blessings to ths family.

I am just sick.
I also got a prayer request email today that someones great niece,5yrs old, was backed over by her grandpa.
Both of these situations just crush you.
I don't know how you forget a child in the car, but I am sure it was not intentional and the hell this family will go through is beyond imagination. SO is the suffering this baby did.
As far as the little girl those that pray, please lift her up.

shdbepaintin said:

I am just sick.
I also got a prayer request email today that someones great niece,5yrs old, was backed over by her grandpa.
Both of these situations just crush you.
I don't know how you forget a child in the car, but I am sure it was not intentional and the hell this family will go through is beyond imagination. SO is the suffering this baby did.
As far as the little girl those that pray, please lift her up.

Click to expand...

By the father's reaction, I don't believe he intentionally left his baby in the car. Perhaps it wasn't his usual job of taking the baby, so after he dropped of the older children he just got deep into thoughts of work or whatever and if the baby were asleep,...........

This actually happened here in OC, Calif a few years ago with a professor. He didn't normally drop the baby off and just forgot. He was tried but acquitted. He and his wife were truly devastated by what happened.

Just imagine being this father, having to live the rest of your life knowing that your negligence caused the death of your child.

My prayers are with both parents and family and especially the little one so tragically taken from this earth.

JMHO
fran

I used to feel bad for the parent, until this happened over and over again. There is a difference between an accident and negligence.

Even if it was not a normal thing for the father to do, where is the communication between mother and father? "How was baby when you dropped him off"?

Dena said:

I used to feel bad for the parent, until this happened over and over again. There is a difference between an accident and negligence.

Even if it was not a normal thing for the father to do, where is the communication between mother and father? "How was baby when you dropped him off"?

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I actually feel like the fact that it happens over and over again - just like kids getting back over in driveways happens over and over again - makes me even more sympathetic to the caretakers.

It's symptomatic of a society where we ALL have too much on our minds and feel rushed to get everything done. I understand how the stupidest details we feel compelled to remember can push aside the most important ones. I understand sleep deprivation and rushed communications b/w parents and trying to raise four children.

I'd lean more towards the negligence explanation if the father in this article was headed to (or from) the bar or the dope man's house, but he just went to work to do his job and earn a living for his family. Heartbreaking.

shdbepaintin said:

I am just sick.
I also got a prayer request email today that someones great niece,5yrs old, was backed over by her grandpa.
Both of these situations just crush you.
I don't know how you forget a child in the car, but I am sure it was not intentional and the hell this family will go through is beyond imagination. SO is the suffering this baby did.
As far as the little girl those that pray, please lift her up.

Click to expand...

I'm so sorry to hear about the five-year-old and her grandpa. I will keep her and her family in my prayers and heart.

KrisNine said:

I don't have kids, so forgive my ignorance, but maybe a policy for daycare centers to call parents to see where the child is if they don't arrive??? Sort of like school? Call both of the parents at home and work. I don't know, but it seems like it could be a good start.

So sad that it's just the beginning of warmer weather and I fear we'll be hearing about more of these.

Click to expand...

Hi Krisnine

Its not the day care or schools job to look after people's kids for them- its their job and noone elses-

This is ridiculous, I dont even leave the dog in the car- there is NO excuse for this-

OK.. here's what i want to know. did this kind of thing always happen (with the invention of automobiles).. and we just never heard about it, on a national level? or is it really happening more and more? if so, is it happening more just because there are more people, or because people are getting more forgetful? or is it just making it into the news more because the media knows these stories sell?
or.... is it happening more frequently because of climate change.....?

i just don't understand why this is big news all of a sudden (although of course it's terrible when it happens). i don't ever remember hearing news stories of kids being left in cars and dying from the heat back in the 70's, 80's, or even 90's.

The father has been charged. I can't even imagine the anguish they must all be going through.

http://poll.jacksonsun.com/pollgadget/cgi-bin/poll.pl?view=20070420dia

No. Sorry. I have very little sympathy for the EXCUSE of this type of behavior being a "symptom of our society".

Come off it! You FORGOT that you had your CHILD in the car with you? You FORGOT that you were supposed to take that child to daycare?

I AGREE, where was the mother of the child, calling the father to find out if he did, in fact, drop the child off at daycare.

WHAT IN GOD'S NAME could this father have had on his mind that was so important that he FORGOT that he had a small child in his care?

No! The fact that this is happening "more and more" means it needs to be looked at and addressed for what it is. Intentional? Probably not.
Negligence? Absolutely! Folks, if this is NOT negligence, WHAT IS?

"Just an accident?" Accidents are PREVENTABLE! This poor child's death was PREVENTABLE!


Herre's an article about this incident:
http://www.newschannel9.com/articles/police_11893___article.html/car_child.html

NewsChannel 9 has learned that a motion detector sounded an alarm several times yesterday before a father found his son's lifeless body inside his 2002 BMW. Robert Reid faces charges of criminally negligent homicide and aggravated child abuse and neglect. Police say Reid dropped off his older children at a local school but failed to drop off his youngest child at daycare. It was seven hours later when Reid found the boy unresponsive in his car. Lt. Tim Carroll with the Chattanooga Police Dept. says that apparently Reid's car, like many BMW's, is equipped with an interior motion alarm. Lt. Carroll said, "You forget to pick up a gallon of milk. You forget an appointment. But you do not forget that you have a 15-month old in the back of a car."

Lt. Carroll said the motion alarm was activated in Reid's car several times yesterday and the father apparently used his remote entry device to silence the alarm. The 15-month-old baby was pronounced dead at the scene. Police said the temperature in the car reached 142 degrees.

i have another piece to my list of theories (why this sppears to be happening more often).... more women going into the workforce, and putting their babies & young children in day care. back in the old days the moms were more likely to stay home with their young children til they were of nursery school age or older. this 'day care for babies' thing is a pretty new concept.

AlwaysShocked said:

"Just an accident?" Accidents are PREVENTABLE! This poor child's death was PREVENTABLE!

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The first definition in my dictionary for accident is "an undesirable or unfortunate happening that occurs unintentionally and usually results in harm, injury, damage, or loss; casualty; mishap." If that doesn't define what happened to this father, I don't know what does.

Accidents, by their very definition, aren't preventable. If the incident had somehow been prevented, it wouldn't be called an accident.

AlwaysShocked said:

No. Sorry. I have very little sympathy for the EXCUSE of this type of behavior being a "symptom of our society".

Click to expand...

You can't excuse an accident - by its very nature, no one meant for it to happen. Some accidents have contributing circumstances that may shift more of the "blame" towards individual behavior - ie drug use, mental illness, speeding, putting on makeup while making a turn, etc..etc... - and make me think more of negligence; but, as yet, I've read of no such circumstance in this case.

My sympathy for this father remains boundless.