‘Absolutely heartbreaking’: 16-month-old boy dies after being left in hot car for 9 h

[fsy82]

A 16-month-old boy is dead after being left in a hot car in Burnaby on Thursday.

According to Acting Burnaby Fire Chief Dave Younger, firefighters were called to the 5600-block of Inman Avenue around 5:20 p.m., to reports of child locked in a vehicle.

READ MORE: Safety checklist: How to keep your child safe from heat stroke in cars

Burnaby RCMP says the child was unconscious when first responders arrived. Sources tell Global News the boy was left in the vehicle for nine hours.

According to police, the boy’s father was located at the scene, and both parents are cooperating with the investigation.

“It’s absolutely heartbreaking, it’s a tragedy, it has ripple effects throughout the community,” said Chief Supt. Deanne Burleigh, Officer in Charge of the Burnaby RCMP.

Burleigh said police were in the very early stages of the investigation and canvassing the neighbourhood and could not provide more details about the case.

“As with any tragedy like this, I can’t imagine how the parents are coping. As a parent myself I can’t imagine how I would cope. So we have provided victim services, they are surrounded by friends and family,” she said.

The BC Coroners Service is also investigating. Police said no one has been arrested in the incident.

Younger said when crews arrived, paramedics were removing the child from the vehicle.

The infant was transported to hospital in critical condition by paramedics, with firefighters assisting with CPR.

BC Emergency Health Services (BCEHS) said four units, including an advanced life support unit, arrived on scene within four minutes of receiving the call.

“With this kind of weather we’re having, yesterday we had record highs, this definitely wouldn’t be a time to leave your child at all in the car, or an animal, or anything,” said Younger.

“Very scary thing.”

Burleigh said police are pleading with the public not to leave their children alone in their vehicles in the warm weather.

“When you’re transporting your children in a vehicle, please check the vehicle and ensure that you have delivered your child and that they’re no longer in the vehicle when you’re parked and you’ve gone off to do your business for the day.”

Experts say it can take just 20 minutes for the interior of a vehicle to reach extreme temperatures on a warm day.

According to safety website kidsandcars.org, 52 children died of heatstroke in cars across the U.S. in 2018, and nine have lost their lives already in 2019.

https://globalnews.ca/news/5263497/c...ource=GlobalBC

[Bouncing Bettys]

9 hours suggests to me that the parent forgot he was in there and went to work, rather than an irresponsible parent thinking he would be fine while running some errands.

Driving and commuting can become so routine that your brain goes on auto pilot. Children, especially so young, can become so quiet as they sleep that you would think they had died. Even now I still have a moment of panic when checking in on my sleeping son and not immediately noticing him breathing. So he likely didn't make a peep for the parent to hear when exiting the vehicle.

But the pitchforks are already out on social media without knowing the facts. I can't imagine what those parents are going through.

[LightKeeper]

Very sad news. RIP

[320icar]

Originally Posted by Bouncing Bettys

9 hours suggests to me that the parent forgot he was in there and went to work, rather than an irresponsible parent thinking he would be fine while running some errands.

Driving and commuting can become so routine that your brain goes on auto pilot. Children, especially so young, can become so quiet as they sleep that you would think they had died. Even now I still have a moment of panic when checking in on my sleeping son and not immediately noticing him breath. So he likely didn't make a peep for the parent to hear as he got out of the vehicle.

But the pitchforks are already out on social media without knowing the facts. I can't imagine what those parents are going through.

Maybe I’m not reading it correctly? But are you defending the idea of a parent forgetting their CHILD in a car long enough to die?

[whitev70r]

Parents are idiots. Period.

If there are any reasonable explanations for this, I will come back and eat crow. But for now, verdict is pure stupidity and fail.

[Razor Ramon HG]

Originally Posted by 320icar

Maybe I’m not reading it correctly? But are you defending the idea of a parent forgetting their CHILD in a car long enough to die?

He is not defending the parent. He is saying that he can understand how these things as sad as they are can happen.

[IMASA]

Non-parents are going to point fingers and play the blame game.
Parents are going to empathize and hug their kids tighter.
Parents of young kids know how tiring, stressful it can be, and the lack of sleep doesn't help.

I'm pretty scatter brained, often worrying about work projects, meetings, presentations and forgetting things like my lunch, phone, coffee at home on the way to work.
Like damn, I drive near the airport to work and even on days off when I'm supposed to drive my parents to the airport, I almost take my daily route to work instead.

I'm terrified that this could happen to me one day since I don't routinely drive my son to his daycare. I try to remind myself by putting his bag in the front seat and make a habit of always checking the rear seats when I leave the car.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifes...=.dfbd6a24c4b5

What kind of person forgets a baby?

The wealthy do, it turns out. And the poor, and the middle class. Parents of all ages and ethnicities do it. Mothers are just as likely to do it as fathers. It happens to the chronically absent-minded and to the fanatically organized, to the college-educated and to the marginally literate. In the last 10 years, it has happened to a dentist. A postal clerk. A social worker. A police officer. An accountant. A soldier. A paralegal. An electrician. A Protestant clergyman. A rabbinical student. A nurse. A construction worker. An assistant principal. It happened to a mental health counselor, a college professor and a pizza chef. It happened to a pediatrician. It happened to a rocket scientist.

[68style]

The ONE time someone leaves something super valuable in a car in Burnaby and it doesn't get broken into.

That's some sad news no matter what the cause... poor kid never got a chance.

[MarkyMark]

Perhaps if you have a baby in the back leave your cellphone in the sleeve behind your driver seat, I guarantee you'll remember you forgot your phone within 10 minutes.

[fliptuner]

Cut his balls off, so he never reproduces.

[dachinesedude]

how is it possible to leave your kid somewhere for 9 hours and forget about it, regardless of location? it's two of them too, what are the chances that both "forgot"?

[rsx10]

Originally Posted by dachinesedude

how is it possible to leave your kid somewhere for 9 hours and forget about it, regardless of location? it's two of them too, what are the chances that both "forgot"?

Could be as easy as a miscommunication. How many time have all of you thought or said something and got misinterpreted.

[underscore]

Now that I have a kid I get that chaos that ensues and how a kid could potentially be left in the vehicle (and it doesn't take long to be fatal), but I don't get how a kid could be basically missing for 9 hours without anyone noticing. Assuming the dad was supposed to bring him to a grandparents or daycare it seems pretty strange that whoever was supposed to be caring for him didn't notice that he wasn't there.

Regardless, the whole cellphone in the back seat thing sounds kinda stupid at first glance but really being in the habit of putting something you need every day in the back seat every single day (not just when you have the kid) is a good idea. I already put my laptop in the seat behind me every day out of habit so I wouldn't be able to go into work without opening the back door every day when I get there. Shorter trips are the scary ones because it's hard to think of anything you'd bring in the grocery store that I'd notice missing immediately.

[freakshow]

Originally Posted by IMASA

Non-parents are going to point fingers and play the blame game.
Parents are going to empathize and hug their kids tighter.
Parents of young kids know how tiring, stressful it can be, and the lack of sleep doesn't help.

I'm a parent of a 2yo and have one due in 3 weeks. I'm definitely going to point the finger. Unless more facts come out, whichever parent left the kid in the car needs to go to jail. This would be a nice addition as well:

Originally Posted by fliptuner

Cut his balls off, so he never reproduces.

[whitev70r]

For those who suggest leaving a phone in the backseat ... WTH has this world come to if people can remember that they left a phone in their car and not their toddler ??!! Can we please institute a basic intelligence test before we let people start having children.

[Bouncing Bettys]

Originally Posted by whitev70r

For those who suggest leaving a phone in the backseat ... WTH has this world come to if people can remember that they left a phone in their car and not their toddler ??!! Can we please institute a basic intelligence test before we let people start having children.

Some of the most intelligent, well educated, accomplished people in the world are also absent minded and forgetful. The Absent Minded Professor wasn't just a work of fiction based purely on imagination. Professors earned the reputation of being so engrossed in their work that they would be forgetful with everything else in life. So I don't see how an intelligence test would have prevented this death, assuming it was a case of such.

[twitchyzero]

i can't fathom how this occurred unless you're brain dead

16mos old require attention 25/8 whether to go to the potty, change diapers etc

if A toddler under your direct supervision isn't on your mind every minute, you screwed up...anyone with a normal mental capacity has zero excuse/empathy for forgetting a life

[hotjoint]

I don't understand how ANYONE could leave a child in a car for that long. Would love to hear the explanation from the parents

[whitev70r]

Absentminded
lost in thought and unaware of one's surroundings or actions

Negligence, carelessness, neglect(noun)
failure to act with the prudence that a reasonable person would exercise under the same circumstances

Absentmindedness is forgetting whether you turned your car lights off. Negligence is forgetting your child (or anything living like a pet) in a car. There is a f'king difference.

[MG1]

Rest In Peace, little one.............

Namo Amida Butsu

[meme405]

I can't believe were having this conversation.

"Lack of sleep"?
"Stressful"?
"Forgot"?

It's a living fucking thing you popped out of your vagina, how do you forget about it. It's not a cell phone or a 5th bag of groceries you can "forget" about.

Parents should be buried underneath the prison.

RIP Sweet Prince.

[danned]

the way to shut up your kids

[StylinRed]

I imagine the father had to go to work, and there was no one to care for the kid, so he thought leaving the kid in the car on his own would be fine... and he didn't check on his kid, or checked on him during his break, and thought the kid was napping, or the kid was still fine when he checked on him.

What a fucking idiot, the pain they must be going through now (if it wasn't done maliciously) I can't even imagine wow

[Ch28]

Originally Posted by whitev70r

For those who suggest leaving a phone in the backseat ... WTH has this world come to if people can remember that they left a phone in their car and not their toddler ??!! Can we please institute a basic intelligence test before we let people start having children.

I can't believe we live in a world where people consider a phone a 'valuable item' that is on par/higher value than your own fucking child.

Jesus christ.

[vitaminG]

Lots of judgement and assumptions in this thread. The cellphone is something you are accustomed to having on you at all times, a baby is not. Simple as that, nobody is suggesting a phone is more valuable than a baby.