An Antioch family’s electric vehicle suddenly shut down due to a faulty battery, trapping a 12-month-old child inside for 30 minutes as the family scrambled to unlock it — and they eventually figured out the car’s single metal key is hidden in a fob accessed through the rear hatch.

In January, an Antioch family’s 2024 Cadillac Lyriq lost power due to a faulty 12-volt battery just after the mother, Lacey Gunn, had placed her 12-month-old in a car seat and walked around to help her toddler into the vehicle, as KGO’s 7 On Your Side reports.

The car, which is owned by the children’s grandparents, became unresponsive, with the electronic door handles failing to deploy, as KGO reports. The key fob did not unlock the doors, and the Cadillac mobile app was also unable to regain access.

While retrieving the physical, metal car key would have been the main solution in the past, many newer, luxury EVs, including the Lyriq, solely come with a battery-powered, digital key in place of the traditional key, according to the site SlashGear.

As KGO reports, the infant remained trapped inside the vehicle for almost half an hour as the family rushed to find a solution.

"The baby starts to cry and is becoming really upset," Erika Tinoco, the children's grandmother, told KGO. "It was a cold winter morning. She's in there by herself!"

General Motors’ in-vehicle safety and support service, OnStar, unsuccessfully tried to unlock the car remotely, and the service was unable to offer other solutions on how to access the car.

"No success!" Tinoco said. "They couldn't give me any other alternatives on how to access the car. Nothing."

7 On Your Side reports that after calling 911 and considering breaking a window, the family learned via ChatGPT that a physical key is hidden inside the key fob in the Lyriq, which can be accessed through the rear hatch. They then opened the trunk and retrieved the baby after about 27 minutes.

"She pulls out the baby through the trunk. At that point, baby is crying. She's already soiled herself," Tinoco said. "She had been in there for 27 minutes all by herself!"

The vehicle’s 12-volt battery was found to be faulty and was replaced, with an OnStar diagnostic report also flagging electrical issues, per KGO. An OnStar technician told the family the failure caused the system to shut down and enter lock mode.

Tinoco told KGO she contacted the dealership and later filed a formal complaint with Cadillac seeking answers about the failure and whether it could happen again, but said she did not receive clear explanations.

“Safety is a priority for Cadillac and General Motors,” the company wrote in a statement. “We are sorry to hear about this situation this customer encountered.” The company added that the hidden key in the hatch is explained in the owner's manual.

Posts on a Cadillac forum show other drivers reporting issues with the Lyriq’s 12-volt battery, as KGO reports, including some involving the 2026 model. GM said it works with federal regulators to determine when recalls are necessary and confirmed the 2024 Lyriq has not been subject to a 12-volt battery-related recall.

Cadillac declined Tinoco's request to buy back the car’s lease, stating the case does not meet Lemon Law criteria.

While it’s important for car owners to read the manual before operating a vehicle to be aware of what to do in emergency situations, as the Guessing Headlights reports, vehicles that rely on all-electronic controls still pose risks no matter how prepared the driver is.

Additionally, situations involving failed 12-volt batteries are not unique to this model or even to electric vehicles. As Guessing Headlines reports, most modern cars, including gas and hybrid models, rely on a low-voltage battery to power electronic systems such as door locks, onboard computers, lighting, and keyless entry. If that battery fails, those systems can become unresponsive even if the main engine or high-voltage battery is still functional.

All automakers include physical backup entry methods, but some online commenters said electronically deployed handles and rear-hatch access can pose problems during outages, particularly if alternative entry points like the rear hatch are blocked or inaccessible.

Others noted how OnStar neglected to tell the family about the hidden physical key, which would have helped shorten this traumatic incident.

And in the age of insidious surveillance, one can’t help but wonder if doing away with traditional keys was yet another way to track consumers — at the expense of safety.

Image: Alexander-93/Wikimedia

Related: Tesla to Redesign Door Handles Following 140 Reports of Trapped Occupants, Feds Investigating

Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan announced on Facebook a few hours ago that they have just welcomed new daughter August to the family.

This means that the couple's nearly two-year-old daughter Max, born in November 2015, has a baby sister to kick around/teach things to.

In the post, the Zuckerberg-Chans write:

When your sister was born, we wrote a letter about the world we hoped she and now you will grow up in — a world with better education, fewer diseases, stronger communities, and greater equality,” the letter read. “We wrote that with all the advances in science and technology, your generation should live dramatically better lives than ours, and we have a responsibility to do our part to make that happen. Even though headlines often focus on what’s wrong, we still believe these positive trends will win out. We’re optimists about your generation and the future.

But rather than write about growing up, we want to talk about childhood. The world can be a serious place. That's why it's important to make time to go outside and play.
You will be busy when you're older, so I hope you take time to smell all the flowers and put all the leaves you want in your bucket now. I hope you read your favorite Dr. Seuss books so many times you start inventing your own stories about the Vipper of Vipp. I hope you ride the carousel with Max until you've tamed every color horse. I hope you run as many laps around our living room and yard as you want. And then I hope you take a lot of naps. I hope you're a great sleeper. And I hope even in your dreams you can feel how much we love you.
Childhood is magical. You only get to be a child once, so don't spend it worrying too much about the future. You've got us for that, and we'll do everything we possibly can to make sure the world is a better place for you and all children in your generation.

The couple first announced the second pregnancy back in March.

At the time, Zuckerberg wrote that both he and Chan grew up with sisters (him three, her two), and he said, "they taught me to learn from smart, strong women. They weren't just my sisters but some of my best friends. They've gone on to write books, excel at performance, music, sports, cooking and their careers. They showed me how to compete and still laugh together afterwards."

San Francisco Police are investigating an odd incident, they say, after a burnt stroller was left in front of a Mission District residence.

Police were called to the strange scene ay 5:20 p.m. Thursday, on Maxwell Court inside the Valencia Gardens housing development between 14th, 15th, Valencia, and Guerrero Streets.

When officers arrived, a 33-year-old woman told them that when she came home, she "found a burned stroller near her unit."

During the investigation, police spoke with the victim's neighbor, who "said that she saw the stroller on fire and put it out."

According to the San Francisco Police Department, the neighbor did not see the suspect, so no description is available, nor has any motive behind the burnt baby buggy been been publicly announced. As of publication time, no arrests have been made on the case.

Zuckerdad is a daddy again and all I can say is "wow!" On his carefully managed Facebook page — a crafty mix of self-adulation, general PR, and business thoughts maintained by 12 employees — the Facebook CEO announced that his wife Dr. Priscilla Chan is expecting the couple's second child. Their first, a girl named Max, was born in 2015.

"Priscilla and I are happy to share we're expecting another baby girl!" Zuckerberg wrote this morning, while also alluding to several miscarriages Chan had experienced before having Max, about which she spoke publicly in an effort to address the stigma that too frequently surrounds them.

"After our difficult experience having Max, we weren't sure what to expect or whether we'd be able to have another child. When Priscilla and I first found out she was pregnant again, our first hope was that the child would be healthy. My next hope was that it would be a girl. I cannot think of a greater gift than having a sister and I'm so happy Max and our new child will have each other."

Indeed, Zuckerberg leads us to believe that he and Chan are having a girl on purpose to celebrate women. Extremely generous!

I grew up with three sisters and they taught me to learn from smart, strong women. They weren't just my sisters but some of my best friends. They've gone on to write books, excel at performance, music, sports, cooking and their careers. They showed me how to compete and still laugh together afterwards.

Priscilla grew up with two sisters and they taught her the importance of family, caring for others and hard work. They supported each other as first generation college students and in their careers in medicine and business. They have so many inside jokes -- the kind only siblings can understand.

We are all better people because of the strong women in our lives -- sisters, mothers and friends. We can't wait to welcome our new little one and do our best to raise another strong woman.

Mark is 100 percent right. Women are so cool, in fact, that you can't even have a male child without one.

I do have one worry: When baby Max was born, Zuck wrote her a long letter about her bright future and announced he and Chan would donate 99 percent of their Facebook stock, the equivalent of $45 billion at the time, to charity. That eventually went to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which is technically an LLC with a charitable focus. My question is, will Max's younger sister get equal treatment, or suffer the sad fate of most second children? I mean, what's Zuck gonna do for a grand gesture here — give away the remaining one percent of their stock?

Related: Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Throws Money At Bay Area Housing Crisis

The homeless woman who gave birth early Monday morning in Golden Gate Park didn't think she was pregnant, despite the insistence of her partner to the contrary. So reports Bay City News, which notes the 33-year-old mother delivered her child in a small shelter behind the Rose Garden.

"I was just in denial," Malina Berman explained. "I would not believe it." Her partner of seven months apparently tried to convince Berman that she was indeed pregnant, but Berman says she waved away the symptoms as digestive problems and simple weight gain.

After delivering the child, her partner ran to find either a phone — they didn't have a charged one — or a taxi to take them to the hospital. Officials with the Fire Department received a call at roughly 4 a.m. yesterday alerting them to the delivery, and were able to locate Berman and her daughter in the park. "She was in the bushes behind the Rose Garden and she did not appear to be out for a walk,” SFFD spokesperson Lt. Jonathan Baxter told the Chronicle.

The two were transported to California Pacific Medical Center on California Street, and officials say Berman is in "fair condition."

Berman and her unnamed partner had been planning to head to Santa Cruz for work, she said, but now are looking for housing in San Francisco. She has named her daughter "Hillary."

“It was phenomenal,” Berman told Bay City News. “I was totally in shock, but it was also one of the most miraculous things I ever experienced.”

Related: 'Baby Jane Doe' Found At SF State In 1984, Now 31, Graduates From SF State

She was the baby abandoned at @SFSU in 1984. She’s now a #Gator grad. via @NanetteAsimov https://t.co/RbbrFGtaK3 pic.twitter.com/apNwHMuyPZ

— SFChronicle (@sfchronicle) May 29, 2016

Only SF natives, mid-1980s SF State grads, and longtime residents will remember the tale of Baby Jane Doe, abandoned in a cardboard box the day of her birth in a laundry room at SF State University, who ultimately became an adopted infant named Jillian Sobol. The Chronicle today brings the heart-warming tale of Sobol, now 31, who after some educational hurdles including learning disabilities, has graduated from the very university where she was born, and found.

It was November 5, 1984 when SF State student Patrick Coughlan noticed something stirring in box of towels on the floor of a room of laundry dryers in Verducci Hall. Inside he found a small infant making no sound, her body taking on a blue tinge, her umbilical cord crudely cut. He went to the only other student doing laundry at the time, 21-year-old nursing student Esther Wannenmacher in the washing machine room next door, and reportedly said, "Did you know there’s a baby in a box in here?" The two called 911, and Wannamacher, now Kaiser San Francisco nurse Esther Raiger, 53, quickly set about doing what she had just been tested on in a newborn care class, making sure the baby's airway was clear, and cuddling her to warm her recognizing the potential for hypothermia.

The infant was whisked to SF General and was quickly given a clean bill of health, but then her story became a Bay Area obsession as potential adopted parents lined up, and as the university tracked down the child's birth parents. They turned out to be two sophomores, and the mother admitted she'd hidden her pregnancy and never informed the father, whom she met at a party. Neither parent ended up graduating.

We learn via the Chron that Sobol, who was adopted by a San Francisco doctor and his gallery-owner wife, Sam and Helene Sobol, wasn't told of the Baby Jane Doe story until she was 16, at which point she and a friend tracked down Raiger, who was by then married with her own children — one named Jillian — and living in Novato.

Coughlan, we're told, died in 2014, but Raiger attended Sobol's graduation last week and the two have become friends. And Sobol has been in touch with both her birth parents, and has met her biological father, who is a massage therapist living in Hawaii.

Scroll to the bottom for updates.

Last Thursday, Bay Area dad Ben Patterson was on toddler duty. As he explained in a May 13 Facebook post, his wife was out with friends, and so as a result he was watching the kids solo. Unfortunately for Patterson, things took a turn for the hellishly vomit inducing — and a random concerned lady made sure the experience was extra awful. Fortunately for us, his post to Facebook of screengrabs of the ensuing text narration to his wife was picked up by parenting blog Scary Mommy.

"So this just happened," wrote Patterson after texting a photo of their vomit-covered son, Declan. "I just pulled over and am trying not to throw up myself. Call me"

Needless to say, his wife Stephanie who was likely by this time distracted with her friends, did not call him. And so his messages continued unanswered.

I just threw up trying to clean him up

It smells SO BAD

I'm standing on the side of the road dry heaving, I can't even be in the car it's so awful

I seriously don’t know what to do, I’m barfing every time I try to clean him up

I’m puking on some lady’s lawn in Burlingame and she comes out to ask me if I’m drunk while driving the kids

I’m trying to explain that I’m a sympathetic vomiter and can’t handle the smell

This is SO BAD

Aaaaand now the cops showed up

Aaaaand now a breathalyzer

YOU OWE ME SO BIG

meanwhile Declan continues to barf

WHAT DID HE EAT BECAUSE IT SMELLS LIKE ROTTING WHALE BLUBBER

ANSWER YOUR PHONE!!!!!

At least I passed the breathalyzer

Trying to drive home with the windows down and breathing through my shirt

Ah, the joys of parenthood.

Update: Apparently this story of parenting terror was just too good grotesque to be true, with dad Ben Patterson updating his original Facebook post to admit that he fabricated elements of the barfventure for "dramatic effect."

"I just wanted to clarify that while the rest of the story is true, the part about the police coming and the breathalyzer was just something I added for dramatic effect for my wife in the moment," wrote Patterson. "Now that the story has blown up, I wouldn’t want anyone to think badly of the Burlingame PD because I was joking! The truth counts."

This post has been updated throughout.

Related: Bay Area Newborn's Hair Makes Her An Internet Star

It's not every day a star is born, and yet two-and-a-half months ago right here in the Bay Area we were blessed with just such a moment. That is the day that little Isabelle Kaplan was brought into this world — and the child's full and lush head of hair, present on day one, has made the infant an internet celebrity.

According to Good Morning America, which, yes, covered the story and interviewed baby Izzy's parents, the photo was first posted to reddit and "sparked a social media frenzy [and] several memes" comparing her to a newscaster.

"We were just happy to see her," Izzy's dad told the ABC anchorwoman. "She was two weeks late already," he added, before noting that the baby "just woke up that way."

We should all be so lucky.

Related: Comb Your Hair Like Gavin Newsom Day, 10/9

Following God's law that all beautiful people must procreate as often as humanely possible, Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newson and his wife, thespian filmmaker/SFist commenter Jennifer Siebel Newsom have produced their fourth offspring.

Dutch William Siebel Newsom was born Friday afternoon in San Francisco, clocking in at a healthy 8 pounds and 12 ounces and 20-and-a-half inches.

Welcome to the world Dutch. We love you. Dutch William Siebel Newsom 8 pounds 12 oz 20 1/2 inches

A photo posted by Gavin Newsom (@gavinnewsom) on Feb 26, 2016 at 6:44pm PST

The Newsoms already have 57 (excuse me, 3) children. Montana is 6, Hunter is 4, and Brooklyn is 2. Dutch was named after Dutch Flats, California, a "semi-ghost town" where young Gavin spent many happy days at his father's home. "Dutch" is the title of a 1991 family comedy about a sassy kid on Thanksgiving. And Double Dutch is a San Francisco bar that the Newsoms would never go to because it's in the Mission.

Welcome to the world, Dutch!

Star of the show. pic.twitter.com/pT9ZSyaiGN

— Marco Rogers (@polotek) January 8, 2016

A San Francisco couple just had a baby on Thursday, kind of by surprise. After tweeting about the entire ordeal, new dad Marco Rogers tells KCBS Radio that he and his wife Aniyia Williams had no intention of having a home birth, but after using an app to track Williams' contractions, that's just what ended up happening.

"I’m a software engineer, I work in tech," says Rogers. "I’m that guy, like the furthest from a healthcare professional as you can get."

Williams woke up with contractions in the morning, and the pair were using an app called Full Term, with Williams using the word "banana" to indicate when a contraction started and ended. Only, as Rogers explains, they got off track somehow, or the app wasn't prepared for how fast Williams' contractions would escalate.

Also, they called Kaiser hospital a couple of times and were told to stay at home even though contractions got to be just five minutes apart — Kaiser told them to stay home until they were two or three minutes apart, and they had already been at this about 10 hours at this point.

But then it all came hard and fast, and as they were headed to the garage to get on the way to the hospital, Williams said they couldn't make it, and she could feel the head already. She told her husband to grab the What to Expect When You're Expecting book, which has an emergency section on delivering a baby, and they made it back up to the bedroom where he and his father in law delivered baby Noemi a few minutes later, before EMTs could arrive.

And, naturally, they used the book as a cutting board for the umbilical cord — and even though Williams told her husband to torch the thing afterward, he didn't, and saved it in a Ziploc.

Rogers described the whole thing in detail in a series of tweets that have gotten plenty of traction in the ensuing days — and we'll forgive him for sneaking in a plug for his wife's startup and reprint them here.

Though rumors continue to swirl around the company she helms, Marissa Mayer has something to smile about today: The Yahoo CEO announced early this morning that she gave birth to identical twin girls.

Tagging her husband, Zack Bogue, one of the most powerful women in tech announced the good news to her 1.14 million Twitter followers a little after 9 a.m. PT:

On her Tumblr (the platform Yahoo bought for $1.1 billion in 2013), Mayer elaborated that "Zack and I are excited to announce that our identical twin girls have arrived! They were born early this morning. Our whole family is doing great! Thanks to everyone for all of the support and well wishes throughout my pregnancy."

Mayer's son, Macallister Bogue, was born in 2012 shortly after she left Google for Yahoo. As with that birth, Mayer says that she will take two weeks off before returning to work.

In a post announcing her pregnancy in September, Mayer wrote "I plan to approach the pregnancy and delivery as I did with my son three years ago, taking limited time away and working throughout."

"Moving forward, there will be a lot to do for both my family and for Yahoo; both will require hard work and thoughtful prioritization," she wrote. "However, I’m extremely energized by and dedicated to both my family and Yahoo and will do all that is necessary and more to help both thrive. The future looks extremely bright on both fronts."

The birth of Mayer's two girls (names as yet unknown) took place, we must note, just ten days after the arrival of Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan's daughter Max. It's a tech titan baby bonanza!

Though we are neither Skrillex nor baby aficionados here at SFist, we nonetheless had to share this photo that got sent in by mom Maria R. of her 15-month-old son Skylar, whom she has outfitted as Skrillex for Halloween. "That turntable attaches on his stroller for when we got trick or treating."

Maria's not the first mom to use this idea, but nevertheless: cute.

May he grow up to hate that alien-death-ray noise.

A couple who were headed to Kaiser Hospital in San Francisco on Friday morning were forced to pull over in the midst of traffic after the wife's water broke and the baby was wasting no time coming out. As KTVU reports, father Hanna Sahourieh of San Bruno pulled their SUV over right where 101 and 80 split off, got out of the car, got honked at several times, and came around to the side of the car where his wife, Naomi, was very close to delivering a 9-pound, 1-ounce baby boy.

As Hanna tells KTVU, "Right when I saw the head start to come out I just parked the car." And he adds that the baby just "popped right out and he landed on my hand right there."

While some women might suffer through labor for hours, Naomi Sahourieh got a good and fast surprise with her second child, who she has named Jiries Hanna Sahourieh, and who did not care to sit through another minute of morning traffic on 101. He was delivered, healthy and crying, at 10:49 a.m., and the couple drove to Kaiser anyway to make sure he got a thorough examination.

In an odd coincidence (maybe because of the heatwave?), a second baby was born on a different section of northbound 101 in Novato, on Saturday morning, also delivered by its father.

[KTVU]

Less than three months after entering this world on a Bayview sidewalk with cocaine in his system, this baby boy still can't catch a break. Yesterday, a diaper bag belonging to the baby's foster mother was swiped from inside the Hall of Justice, just feet away from security guards and in the most law-and-orderish building in the city.

Surveillance video captured an image of the pony-tailed suspect, who was identified as Daniel Ripper. Today, police announced that the suspect had been tracked by the special vicitim's unit to the Kean Hotel on Sixth and Mission and arrested. No word on whether the bag, which contained a wallet, cell phone and various baby items, was recovered.

The incident is another sad spot on the baby's short life thus far, which began with a delivery on a rain-soaked sidewalk. The baby's mother, Nkeka Nash, handed the newborn off to an acquaintance on the street and the baby was resuscitated in a squad car en route to SF General.

[SF Examiner]

Previously: S.F. Mom Facing Charges for Abandoning Cocaine Baby