The agony of forgetting to remember

Last week, a baby died in a hot car. Probably more than one baby dies in a hot car, although the one that came to my notice was seven month-old Chloe Fogarty, because this incident happened in Ireland, where I live, which is not exactly known for its tropical weather.

It was the hottest day of the year so far and her dad was taking her to creche on his way to work.

He took a call, became distracted, drove to the office with his daughter snoozing in her backseat chair and only remembered that he hadn’t dropped her off come lunchtime.

Already, it was too late. So what was the temperature on this “hottest day of the year”? A pleasant 23 degrees Celsius. And I recalled a day many moons ago when I had just got into my vehicle in the car park outside a Benoni supermarket.

I was enjoying the bubble of heat, for it was winter and mild outside, when a woman I vaguely knew pulled up beside me. Her baby was asleep in his safety chair and she looked at him, leapt from the car, locked him in, and raced towards the shops, disappearing from sight.

Her baby slept on. I stayed in my car, watching him. Within five minutes she was back, throwing herself into her vehicle like an Olympic long-jumper then driving off, oblivious to me.

I never said a word. But what if she’d slipped inside, bumped her head, knocked herself out? What if there’d been a hold-up and she was a hostage while her baby slowly roasted? What if, what if… Because it doesn’t take much for a baby, with its immature physiology, to overheat.

In the USA, on average, 37 babies per year die of heatstroke when their mums and dads leave them in cars – one every 10 days. An analysis of 171 such deaths found that in 75% of cases the child was unattended, two-thirds of the time, because it had been forgotten.

Being a parent will do this to you, especially a new parent, exhausted, sleep-deprived, struggling with routines.

For the rest, often folk let a sleeping baby lie because they do not realise how hot the sealed vehicle will become – yes, even with the window cracked, even when it’s a pleasant 23 outside. But you’d never forget your child, right?

I’m sure Chloe Fogarty’s dad thought that too.

Jennie Ridyard

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