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A four-month-old baby boy, Everett Carey, who was found unresponsive after being left alone for hours in his father's vehicle at the El Cerrito Plaza BART station for hours, died at the Doctors Medical Center in San Pablo. While reports on exactly what happened are sketchy, it seems Everett's father, who normally dropped Everett off at a babysitter in the morning before driving to the station, forgot. Or something. And left him inside the car. Later than afternoon, the mother went to the station to look for the baby, finding his limp body in the car. According to reports, "an autopsy is scheduled for today by the Contra Costa County coroner, and findings such as the cause of death and the results of toxicology tests will be taken into account."
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How do you 'forget' your infant in the car and leave for work? Jesus, you have to have a license to cut hair, but they'll let anyone have a kid. So sad.
Maybe the father didn't have his coffee that morning?
Seems there's one of these cases every year...I can't imagine how you forget your child in the car though.
Yet another argument for forced sterilization.
@ first four commenters: none of you are parents, clearly. And if you are and you say you can't possibly understand how someone could leave their kid in the back seat, you are lying. The bigger picture problem is that two parents are working to make ends meet, and their four-month-old was being cared for by strangers during the day.
I live in San Francisco, where cars are broken into regularly. I don't even leave garbarge in my car, for fear of it being broken into. Checking the car for stray items is a very easy habit to get into.
Luckily, I don't have to understand how this happens, I'm not the one who killed my child by forgetting about him.
No, I am not a parent, but I wouldn't forget my DOG in the car.
Katy, I’m sorry I’ve committed the crime of not having a child. Clearly, this makes my opinions invalid.
Now, as you say, let’s focus on the REAL problem: working parents! 'Cause anyone who leaves their kids with a sitter was just asking for this!! BURN THEM ALL!!
I'd rather change our broken system, where the vast majority of parents get no support, financial or otherwise, from our social safety net.
Um, how about now having kids if you can't afford them?
I'm just sayin'.
You are making the baby Jesus cry.
= (
Perhaps, but I bet that is not what is at play here. Another article mentioned that the car he was left in was a leased luxury car. The fact is, people treat babies as accessories. They are ranked up there with the value of their home and yes, their new leased car. I am a parent and could picture this happening when I try to empathize, but not really. The thing is, my wife and I do with less so that we can raise our child ourselves. She is a person, not a yuppie accessory.
Really, why should the "vast majority of parents" get "support" from our "social safety net"? You already get your tax deduction, 12 free years of education, and then publicly subsidized universities. And that's not even the poor parents! The idea that the "vast majority" of parents should get more public support merely because they have a kid seems to me to be bordering on the absurd.
OK, well I AM a parent, and no, I cannot for the life of me figure out how someone could be so stupid and negligent.
I agree with KatyG 100% ... in today's "Elsewhere" (mentally) rat race, I can see it happening .. and cannot imagine how horrified the father must feel.
I agree with you. If we had a decent paid parental leave policy in this country, we would be better off in general. The most important time in child development should be spent with at least one of the parents at all times.
@KatyG: Agreed - I was in the same judgmental boat as the first 4 commenters until I read this heartbreaking article in the Washington Post Magazine about the people who have gone through this.
Bottom line - those parents are in a hell far worse than any punishment that can or should be meted out.
I agree, the Washington Post article was a real eye-opener about how it happens to completely normal loving parents who never forgive themselves. Most of the cases seemed to have happened when all sorts of weird circumstances stacked up against them that one sad day.
Yes, almost all child-left-in-car cases (including the ones in your article) occur where the parent was busy, distracted, or otherwise confused by a change in their daily routine. BUT that doesn’t seem to be the case here; the father had the same everyday routine of driving his kid to day care, and just totally flaked. And didn’t remember his kid in the car for TWELVE hours, until the mother found him. Odd.
What a heartbreaking article. It definitely tells a side of the story that I hadn't considered before.
@KatyG You're an idiot for even trying to get sympathy for the parents, who by the way, should never be allowed to have children again! Forgetting your baby in the car is bullshit! (and yes, I'm a parent, who also struggles trying to make ends meat).
let's refrain from name calling in the commments. please. thanks.
Understanding is not sympathy, though I may indeed be an idiot for trying to speak up for understanding from the peanut gallery here.
"an autopsy is scheduled for today by the Contra Costa County coroner"
I guess that the authorities have to go through the motions, but it's obvious the kid from heat.
I don't care how busy you are, you just don't leave a kid in a death-trap.
i can't believe that people are sympathizing with the father here and suggesting that the punishment will be too harsh . . . having a child means taking on the responsibility for a life. that child cannot take care of him or herself and if you lock it inside of a sweltering death box all day you are committing murder.
i have little sympathy for the harrowing experience and hardships of raising children in 2009; the world doesn't need anymore kids right now, if you chose to bring them into this world be prepared to raise them and try to avoid killing them.
Speaking of infanticide, did any of you see "I've Loved You So Long"? It was amazing. Kristin Scott Thomas was downright searing in her portrayal as a mother who murdered her son.
Her not getting an Oscar nomination? Was the real crime here.
What really angers me is that this happens EVERY DAMN YEAR! Unless you just moved here from a northern climate you know better than leaving any child/pet in the car for more than one minute, especially anywhere in the East Bay after March.
Ignorance, my dear Watson. Climate is irrelevant to a child left in a car. A trapped baby can die in cold weather just as easily as in summer. The greenhouse effect occurs regardless of amount of heat or sun. Snopes ‘splains it here--one child died in March in New Hampshire, after being left in the car for only one hour:
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/parental/carbaby.asp
So yeah, when I pumped gas at 8th & Harrison this morning, I double-checked to make sure I’d locked my car AND removed my keys before going inside to pay. All that effort just to protect my cheap purse. But apparently, if I had a child in the car, I’d be totally forgiven if I didn’t do those things? I guess I just don’t understand parentin'.
Yet parents who tow their children around in a bike trailer are seen as needlessly endangering their child's lives. I never hear of anyone forgetting that bike trailer is there...
Thanks. It's no question that this is a tragedy, but I wish there would be more who, whenever this happens, point out the dehumanizing effect cars have on us. It's not natural to sit in an enclosed, sealed chamber like that. In addition to those who are run over by cars, there are those kids and animals who die inside them each year. If dad would have biked, or walked, instead of operating a complicated and dangerous machine, he'd have been more aware of his child and the child would be alive today.
It's not natural to sit in an enclosed, sealed chamber like that.
Are you typing this from a dehumanizing enclosed, sealed chamber, such as a room in a building?
How does the fact where I sit right now in any way diminish what I said? If you disagree with my argument, address it in detail, please. We all here live in civilization, and I don't think it can be denied that a lot of aspects of it have detrimental effects on us. (BTW, buildings / shelter is a heck of a lot more natural and ancient concept for us humans than driving a Chrysler 300, eh?)
Driving around in any American-made car is barbaric.
Do you think enclosed, sealed chambers in transportation had their start with Henry Ford? How is such a chamber any less shelter than a building?
There are plenty of good reasons to not drive cars, but the "unnatural" aspect of the chamber-design of (most) automobiles doesn't strike me as one of them.
Was it hot in el cerritto yesterday? If I remember correctly yesterday wasn't a particularly hot day here. Perhaps the child's death had nothing to do with being trapped in the car for several hours. The autopsy will show. In any case, of course it's wrong to leave your child in a car for several hours.
why didn't the daycare call mom and/or dad to ask why the child didn't arrive? i'm not placing more blame on them...but really, they should have called a parent
I forgot my belt today. I will not judge parents who occasionally for get the kids.
I forgot my belt today. I will not judge parents who occasionally for get the kids.
Some of the comments on here are hysterical. Blaming society for not having a safety net, blaming the evil automobile, if only the father had been a bicyclist, blaming the day care center. Please just blame the parents; lay it where it belongs.
I am a parent and cannot see myself doing this. The fact is that people treat babies as accessories. They validate their existence just like the perceived value of their home or the model of their leased automobile. The kid was four months old and in daycare already? Apparently he was not a priority. We can do with less to raise our children ourselves if we choose. When children are simply a yuppie accessory however they become treated exactly as such. Valued as much as the car, or the expensive briefcase, or the iPhone. Treated as something important that you could accidentally leave in your car.
I was with you until the "four months old and already in daycare comment." Working for a living =/= you consider your kid an accessory not as valuable as your iPhone.
Well, we do not know about these people's situation other than that they lived in a nice area, leased a shitty American luxury car, and had a 4 month old in daycare. My point was that if they need to work to pay the bills perhaps they could live a less luxurious lifestyle and raise their kids themselves. If the car and the house are so important for you to work for at the expense of raising your 4 month old, then I submit the kid is valued as an accessory.
Do you have kids? Seriously, at four months old they shit, cry, and sleep. You can love your kid and still need the fulfillment of a job, even if you don't necessarily need the money. That's all I'm saying.
I just disagree. If you feel empty and unfulfilled after four months then perhaps you should not have had children. It seems to me that one parent should stay home with the kids and not return to work until the kids are ready to go to school. That is what my wife and I are doing. Once our daughter is in pre-school she will go back t work. If I had to stay home and reverse the roles then fine (I would have preferred it). Having kids is a huge commitment. If after four months you cannot be bothered to go through with it then perhaps you were not ready.
Must I clarify over and over again for the mouth-breathers? I understand what happened. I do not condone, excuse, forgive, or sympathize. What the hell happened to reading comprehension skills around here?
Humm ... Everett Carey one dumb human being who will be spending the rest of his life being taken care with your tax dollars!
Forget about the bottom feeders who pulled the "oopsie I'm preggers" have you people even seen some of the smarter people having kids? Check your nearest Volvo or BMW SUV.
I'm 6'2" 200lbs and move rather slowly yet their little spawn run into my knees and hips at full speed while I AM STANDING STILL and the uninvolved sperm and egg donors give me dirty looks like I reached out and clubbed the kid. It takes every ounce of energy to not tell them to get sterilized.
Parenting is a dying art, now everyone wants to have a baby, dress them and show them off when it is convenient. Gotta have a career and social life and their girlfriends or his fantasy football group and golfing buddies and her sewing circle and and and and and and and.
And? No time for raising a child. You selfish annoying pricks.
Unless you had an accidental pregnancy, go be a fucking parent if you have a brain. Raise your child and stop hiring old Mexican women to feed them. Idiots.
Just another bunch of mindless morons trying to prove their virility and value by doing what the Chinese have proven can be done millions of times too many. Just don't have 3 babies then lecture me about my carbon footprint just because you felt guilty and got a Prius.