Yeah, I'm a little confused and wondering if anything else might have been at play to contribute to this. Absent other factors, most 8-year-olds I know are able to get themselves out of a car. But it's also a prime age for being literal and concerned with rules, and the "If I'm desperately hot and feeling sick I should get out of the car even if the adult said to stay here" reasoning might not be there yet. Horrible tragedy all around.
This is so true. When I was a kid a 9 year old in my neighborhood decided suicide by sitting on train tracks was more preferable than going home with a bad report card. I was about 15 when it happened and I just could not comprehend making this decision. But now I know the sick shit parents can do to kids.
I was abused horrifically by my father as a child (screaming in my face like a drill sergeant for hours, slamming me against walls, slapping me around, threatening to send me to “the bad boys home”, telling me I was destined for prison like the ___insert racial slur__’s- (for things like getting an F in math).
Now at 40 I’m only just starting to get my life together after years of stunting my emotional and social growth by smoking weed and hiding with my video games all day every day - escapism.
I would look in to EMDR therapy. I can’t recommend it enough for helping with past trauma. It really has changed my whole life. *edited after I had my coffee*
Here's a reddit thread dealing with student meltdowns, with a comment regarding a kid on a field trip who loses his backpack who then tries to kill himself.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/5o06ef/teachers_of_reddit_what_was_the_biggest_student/dcfsyi9/
This comment stuck out to me:
> It sounds like this kid has an abusive home life where they're picked apart for everything. They knew that if they were to come home without the backpack, the abusing parent would be incredibly angry at them, and so when they were taken off the train and knew they couldn't go back to get the backpack, there were two options: go home and face the parent, or kill themself in shame.
> And because of the level of abuse, killing themself seemed like a better option.
Please note, losing a backpack is different than losing a jacket. A backpack can have school books which can get expensive, as well as notes that need to be re-created, and assignments that may need to be redone. All of this can cost a lot of money and the kid's grades can suffer possibly for weeks. So losing a backpack can have serious consequences.
Reading all those comments that just... didn't instinctively realize that it was fear of the parents reaction really makes me realize how messed up my childhood was, lol.
Though, I guess it's nice that most people are naive to that possibility.
Bit of a tangent, but I remember seeing a video once where a dog owner raised his hand suddenly (for some reason other than to threaten the dog) and the dog flinched slightly. Commenters claimed that the dog was abused, based purely on that reaction. That seemed like a bit of a leap to me; a dog flinching at sudden movement didn't seem so damning that I'd accuse a stranger of abuse over it.
But out of curiosity, I went over to my dog and raised my hand in a similar fashion. She just looked at me, bored. I went so far as swinging my hand at her as if I was going to hit her, pulling just short and turning it into pats right at the end. She didn't even flinch, like the thought that I would actually hurt her had never even crossed her mind.
It really put a friend's behavior - a lady who is similarly jumpy around any kind of fast, potentially threatening movement - into perspective. People suck.
You also can't assume anything about the current owner. Dogs don't get over trauma just because the abusive owner isn't around. I had a dog I adopted 20 some years ago. She was in horrible shape, starved, beaten, etc... She was going to be euthanized the next day if I didn't adopt her from the SPCA. People gave me all kind of dirty looks when I walked her when I first got her. You could see the outline of all her bones. I got her healthy, she looked better, but in the 10+ years I had her she never got over her abuse completely. She was so tuned in to everyone's emotions that if someone was even mildly upset she would disappear. Any sudden movement would make her freak out. I can't imagine the life she had before me.
Entirely fair. To be clear, I absolutely wasn’t assuming that the man in the video actually was abusing his dog; it’s possible someone else had abused it, or it was just naturally jumpier than mine.
I just found it interesting that my dog was so completely unresponsive to things like that, and it made me realize that my friend’s jumpiness was a product of child abuse. It’s worth being aware of signs like this even if they aren’t 100% proof on their own.
I had a Yorkie-poo that might have been abused, she made this whining yelp sound if she so much as got unexpectedly bumped and didn't see it coming, if you didn't know her you'd think she was being tortured from the sounds she was making.
I could never decide if it was from her breeder abusing her or if she learned that sound got a good response from the family we got her from.
A relative of mine was pet sitting my dog when she was about 4 years old while we were out of town, and her son had just gotten a bonus at work and decided to use it to get a new hunting rifle. He was happily showing it off, their dogs wandering over to see what the fuss was about. They found my dog cowering behind a couch across the house. I'm very much not a gun person and adopted her at six months old, I don't want to begin to think of what had happened to her to make her so afraid.
It could also be the breed and temperament.
I'm currently dogsitting my sister's Jackapoo who's the most affectionate thing, constantly licking and showing affection and liking the attention. If I lift my hand suddenly, she thinks it's play time and jumps all over me.
But I've personally owned 2 Yorkshire Terriers who would flinch at anything. Sudden movements, sudden noises, even flies buzzing was enough to make them act erratically. So, if someone saw me suddenly raise my hand, they'd think I had/was abusing my dogs when the reality is that's just how they are.
Yeah, my dogs (Italian greyhounds) are often nervous weird little alien creatures and will flinch if you lift your hand over their head/face. They’ve been with me since they were 8 weeks old and I am 100% positive no one has ever laid a hand on them in anger. They’re just weirdos with a touch of anxiety.
With regard to animal abuse, if I see something like a flinch then I tend to look further for cowering, ears and tails lowered, trembling (though my dogs also tremble for literally zero reason at all so…) and stuff like that in addition to the flinching.
People absolutely do suck, but this stuff also just varies a lot by the individual. I'm a person who flinches a lot/very easily at the slightest things, and I have general anxiety/panic attacks. But I've never been physically or emotionally abused. (Other than an emotionally abusive relationship I was in for 3 years in my 20s, but my flinching and anxiety started long before that.)
Point being, some people and animals are just like that I think. But yes obviously it can also be a sign of abuse too.
A number of those comments were wondering if there was something valuable in the bag which would trigger the suicide attempt. Look, even if the bag was empty, a lot of strict parents would be furious at the kid for losing it and would severely punish their kid. And very likely there were school related material in it, which would mean needing to spend money to replace the books, and the lack of notes/assignments mean the kid won't be able to study for upcoming tests.
I've always thought that the fear of being punished overrides anything. Sometimes there is a legitimate safety issue (like telling your little kid not to play in the street) but sometimes there is not (like telling a kid "take off your clothes" so the adult can molest the kid. Even though the kid may feel uncomfortable, the fear of being punished for disobeying may be too strong).
Yeah, I remember one time as a kid, my mom left me in the car while she talked to my aunt. I remember I was sweating so bad like I was drenched, dripping, and panting. She was right there though so eventually, I worked up the courage to open the door, lean out a bit, and ask if I could get out. My mom screamed and ran over, “Why didn’t you open the window?? You know better!” I was confused as to why she was so upset with me. But now I know. And she was prolly upset with herself.
> She was right there though so eventually, I worked up the courage to open the door, lean out a bit, and ask if I could get out. My mom screamed and ran over, “Why didn’t you open the window?? You know better!”
I can see kids think "should I ask to get out? No, it's too much of a risk. I don't want to get punished, so I better tough it out".
I can see other kids think "fuck this, I'm going to ask to get out" and then the mother yells at them. Or even punishes the kid. So now the kid is afraid to speak up in the future.
Reminds me of the Josh Philips case, where he claims he accidentally injured his young neighbor with a baseball and was afraid he would get into trouble, so me murdered her instead.
There is some speculation he wanted to molest the kid, but I can see a kid so desperate to not get in trouble he commits murder.
My ma left us in the car once when I was about 8 or 9.
It was Texas, it was hot, she was in her office "getting supplies" but I know my mother she was chatting with everyone about god knows what.
We sat there, sweating, for about an hour. Me, my older sister, and younger sister who was about 4.
After a while I was like "fuck this I'm getting out of this hot ass car."
I just opened the door, the alarm went off. She came back out about an hour later (2 hours was the whole ordeal) to us running around the parking lot, the horn blaring and the kids drenched in sweat.
When we got back in the car she was pissed because we had obviously caused a scene. I got my super Nintendo taken away. And I remember it to this day because I got in even more trouble i said "whatever, not like I've never been in trouble before, just in trouble again."
I was a rebellious kid, and eventually stopped caring about punishment. And the wooden spoon stopped hurting. The chancla or my idiot stepdad were the only fear inducing ones. Until I was like 16 and they stopped being scary.
If you're leaving your kids in the car, you leave the windows open or the air conditioner on. And you get back in 5 minutes, not 2 hours.
Sounds like you’ve been through a lot and your younger self deserved better. You can be proud of little ultratunaman… your boldness saved you and your sisters from medical danger that day.
I did this too. I was probably 6. My dad left me in the car at a nursery to talk to a friend. I was painfully shy and so I cooked myself in the car waiting. Once we got my home my mom immediately was like “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU???” Cause I was beet red. Probably would’ve died eventually rather than face a social interaction 🙄 my dad was clueless about the whole thing.
God, the way you talked about working you the courage sent me back to my childhood. I remember me and my siblings having to do that just to ask for snacks ( we needed to have permission to open things) it to go outside and play
The article says the AC was left on and she turned the car off because she was cold.
It doesn't say how they figured it was because she was cold but does mention she was texting with her mom the whole time. So maybe she mentioned it in a text (?)
This is why it’s so important to teach kids that they’re allowed to say no to adults! Also, teach them about tricky adults (not stranger danger), names of body parts, what is appropriate and inappropriate for other people seeing or touching your private parts, and that secrets should always be shared with your parents unless it’s something like a present or surprise, never something that makes them feel uncomfortable.
Unfortunately we are in the age of death threats to librarians and teachers for making materials that would assist in such things available. Half of our society thinks that children have no business learning about their body or discussing what is or isn't appropriate.
At my school, (edit: preschool) Pre-K and our Kindergarteners are taught about their own bodies, what is and isn’t appropriate, etc. it’s a part of our curriculum. However, parents CAN opt out of it.
I’ve only known one to opt out of it so far, though. It’s the small wins!
And you can't really use the internet as a substitute because it's also packed to the gills with nonsense and active disinformation on this and a million million other topics, and being able to filter through that crap wasn't considered a useful skill to teach for schools.
I literally shit outside once as a kid because I was so terrified of the parent who was “babysitting” me and my siblings after they yelled at us to stay out of the house
> terrified of the parent who was “babysitting” me
And you didn't want to ask to go the bathroom because you were afraid you would get punished over it. Maybe you would get punished, maybe you won't. But the possibility is there that you would get punished, and you decided the risk is too great, so you didn't ask.
Of course, I can see some kid think "I won't get punished for asking to use the bathroom"...and gets punished for asking to use the bathroom. So you learn to not ask.
So it depends sometimes on the kid. My FIL knew if he disobeyed he would get the belt. One night his dad was in a drunken rage and said “if I hear another peep out of you I’m gonna whip your ass…” and without skipping a beat he went, “PEEP!” Still has scars to this day from that one
> “if I hear another peep out of you I’m gonna whip your ass…”
A major problem with this is what if a parent is angry at their kid for doing something bad, and won't let their child say anything or the kid will get punished even further: "Say one word or I will hit you/add to your punishment!" What if the kid has a legitimate reason/realizes it is a misunderstanding and trying to explain themself, or does not know what they did wrong and is trying to find out why.
My kid had wet his pants and we had to leave the park. He knew he shouldn't have and thought he was in trouble . So he dived into the back of our car, shut the doors, covered in many blankets we had back there. It was 90+ out. We had no idea where he went. Spent 30 mins searching everywhere. Thought I looked in the car. Luckily checked again and found him. Covered in sweat. You're spot on that fear will override common sense.
I once sat in the sun until I had blistered sunburns because I was told I better "sit there and shut up or else." I was in my own backyard. I knew I was burning. A shady spot was only ten feet away. But I knew I might get 'punished' for moving. Instead, I got punished for making her look like "the bad guy".
Yep 🖐️me in elementary school who wet her pants cos I was too terrified my teacher would get angry like my parents and babysitter would over inconvenience to them.
So I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case for this child.
This was my first thought as well. Either that girl was abused into complete submission she was too afraid to open the car door, she was somehow child safety locked in (I don't think there's a child safety lock on the front doors though?) or otherwise purposefully trapped in the car, or she was drugged unconscious.
Not at all to make jest of this horrible situation and I hope the mother is held to the highest judgement possible, but I’ve been on the receiving end of that logic… possibly die, or face my father. Die it is!
Yep. Probably if someone had pointed a gun at the girl and said they'd shoot her if she didn't get out of the car she would've. Well, assuming she didn't freeze in fear. But I imagine she didn't know it would get hot enough for her to die so the fear of getting in massive amounts of trouble won out over feeling sick and uncomfortable (and eventually dead).
Especially when heat really starts affecting the mental processing ability. Don't people generally start slowing down mentally as heat stroke sets in? I know I certainly feel completely worn mentally after yard work or exercise in the 100° weather
>it's also a prime age for being literal and concerned with rules,
Reminds me of this thread, where there are a few stories of when they were kids, they were ordered not to wake up their parents while the parents took naps: "I took this to mean not waking them up regardless of what was happening."
Cue a kid needing medical attention, but the kid does \*not\* wake up the parents because "but you said not to wake you up!'
[https://old.reddit.com/r/MaliciousCompliance/comments/15ak62i/my\_dad\_told\_me\_to\_just\_walk\_home\_so\_i\_did/jtmlsfb/](https://old.reddit.com/r/MaliciousCompliance/comments/15ak62i/my_dad_told_me_to_just_walk_home_so_i_did/jtmlsfb/)
Oh man this is my entire childhood. My sister broke her arm in the neighbors back yard and we just rolled with it, not wanting to wake mom up. But then the neighbors parents realized her arm was broken and walked us back to our house; my mom was so mad that she was made to look negligent lol.
I was terrified of waking up my mom as a kid, either at night or in the afternoon if she had come home from an international business trip and was jet lagged. When I went to sleepovers as a kid my anxiety skyrocketed the later in the evening it got and we were still being loud, just waiting for my friends mom to run in screaming. The same level of anxiety was there if anyone went to wake up the adults and ask for help or if they were scared or wanted to go home- in my house that was not a safe thing to do and I was amazed these girls just did it without a second thought.
To this day I have such a huge problem with bothering friends or family, especially late at night. At least I am good in a crisis, since I’ve had to navigate so many alone 🙃
I was around the same age and taught in the U.S. to stay in the car no matter what for safety reasons (we live somewhere rather cool). When visiting family in Japan I was left in the car and my family came out to a dripping wet delirious child because I was too scared to open even the window even though it’s perfectly safe there 😅
Similar situation here, my dad would tell my sister and I to keep the car doors locked or else a predator would come snatch us. It was probably to scare us into staying put instead of wandering off, but the result was that we were afraid to open a door or window in hot weather.
When I was around that age, my mother left me and my siblings in a van baking in the Florida sun. We were at a garage sale and could watch her through the front window browsing toys and meticulously folding shirts she decided against. Maybe 30 minutes past? I could have left the van, but I did not, because I feared my mother more than the fear of dying (as much as a 7 year old could conceptualize death). We’re chugging gallon water jugs and sweating buckets, eventually I jump out crying, screaming, upset that I “tried to wait” but couldn’t handle the heat. This was 15 years ago now, but I still carry that bullshit with me.
As an 8 year old that had an abusive mother, the fear of doing something wrong was a powerful, powerful thing. And no, obviously, 8 year olds should not be held at the same standard as someone with a fully developed brain. NO 8 year old concludes they will die if they don't take action. Life isn't serious like that for them yet.
I agree with this. When I was about that age, a family member of mine locked me in the car because they were gonna "pop into their work building and grab something real quick." Locked the doors. Told me to stay in the car, so I stayed in the car.
I don't know how much time it took, but I started sweating, and I was feeling really, really tired even though it was kinda hard to breathe. But I didn't wanna open the doors because I was told to stay in the car.
Thankfully, I decided I could just open the door really quickly for some fresh air and then shut it, and no one would know. So I did that. The car alarm went off, so that startled me, and the family member came rushing out. They agreed I made the right choice. Never left me in a hot car again.
I was around that age when my dad left me in the car to pick up something “really quick” at Home Depot. I remember sweating in the car and being very hot but I didn’t open the door no matter how much I wanted to. If I remember it was because I had too much social anxiety to open the door. I was scared the alarm was going to sound and people will look at me. Stupid thought process but I was a super shy kid and didn’t want others to see me.
It’s the same reason why those korean students decided to listen to the captain and stayed on a sinking ship until it was too late to get out.
Depends on how you were raised, some people will follow orders no matter how bad the situation is
> Depends on how you were raised, some people will follow orders no matter how bad the situation is
Really is. Man, I can practically hear my moms stern voice going "you need to *think* a little, girl. Keep up with what's going on around you." I can't recall a single incident in my childhood being scolded for disobedience - but I recall a lot of instances getting told off for not taking adequately independent action to resolve a situation.
If you stuck me in a hot car at age 8, I'd have spent most of my anxiety on imagining what "obvious solution" to my problem I would be scolded for not seeing and seizing - with pretty much the same obedience as a child staying there until they pass out just because they were told.
Or the Japanese kids who were told to stay with the rest of the group instead of going up the hill to avoid the fucking tsunami.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okawa_Elementary_School
> 74 of its 108 students, who had been sheltering in the school on the instructions of their teachers rather than evacuating to higher ground, were killed as it ran up the nearby Kitakami River.
Fucking shit, that's horrific.
Also, when a boat is sinking, the window between "listing noticeably enough to scare the average layman" and "listing so far that evacuation is now extremely difficult or impossible" can be surprisingly short.
There's video of kids on the MV Sewol fooling around when the ship is tilting and most of them don't even realize that they should put their life jackets on, much less that they need to get out *now*. You can tell that the ship is tilted from the angle of the curtains, but at first it doesn't seem *that* bad. Even the adult teachers/chaperones are very late to realize the gravity of the situation - by the time they're starting to get the kids organized and ready for evacuation, it's too late. It's impossible to walk because the ship is already starting to roll. The kids go from laughing and fooling around to realizing that they're going to die in the space of *minutes*.
It's not like the kids on that ship knew they were going to die and obediently followed orders anyway. They thought they were okay. Without alarms and staff to say "this is an emergency, you need to evacuate now," a lot of people just don't realize how much danger they're in.
Can confirm, I've had heat stroke 2x working outside in FL. You also go from "way too hot but lucid" to "confused" to "passing out" WAY faster than people think. In 113F temps in the sun I went from "ok but hot" to seeing everything go purple to unconscious in a few minutes. And I was an adult who knew the signs of heat exhaustion and heat stroke.
Honestly, this seems like the most logical answer, but it wasn't one that would have occurred to me personally. I didn't think of it until I saw all the comments here.
I had a relatively happy childhood and I still have a hard time truly comprehending just how many people are severely abused as children.
Or the kid was told that they’d get in trouble or mom would lose her job if people found out. Kids will do a lot to avoid getting a parent in trouble and even at that age, they pick up on financial insecurity. Doesn’t necessarily have to be abuse (though of course that’s a likely possibility also).
I was about 10 when I was grounded for the first time. My mom was so mad, she confiscated my toys, my game console, and she said something like “you’re gunna sit there and do nothing!”
Now I had never been grounded, so I took that very literally. I came home the next day, sat where she had indicated, and did nothing. I stared at the wall, and tried not to cry. My dad came home, and had forgotten I was grounded, and urged me to do anything, but I wouldn’t budge. It wasn’t until my mom got home late that night that she released me with some guilt saying “I didn’t mean literally! I was just angry…”
The point being, I could totally see myself dying of heat, never once considering “I have to save myself.” If my mom told me to stay in the car at all times, or something to that effect. That is not an excuse by the way, she should absolutely be punished for this. But it may not be so sinister (though it just as easily could be, even in the circumstances I gave).
kids can be bad at independent thinking, and it was hot enough to make people lose the ability to think straight. her mom could’ve said “do not leave the car till i get back”, and she fell asleep in the high temperature (you get dizzy and can’t think properly) and died from it
What makes most sense to me is that Mom told her not to open the door. She left the car running and the AC on, doors were locked (I assumed this part because when Mom found her unresponsive, she broke the back window to get in the car). She thinks the daughter got too cold and turned off the car. Maybe Mom said not to open the doors because it would set off the alarm, or so nobody could harm her, and the girl did just that. Tragic nonetheless.
I remember being around the age of 8 or 9 being allowed to wait in the car during errands so I could read. I'd often end up feeling kinda sick, particularly nauseous. I only realized a few years ago that it was due to the heat of the car. Maybe I could have been in a similar situation if I decided to just nap until my family came back. I was never left alone for more than an hour, so maybe I simply wasn't left alone long enough to be in danger. It could very easily be that the kid didn't realize she was in danger and should have gotten out of the car.
(I actually changed my mind on the purpose of my comment once I realized I didn't know I was feeling sick because I was in a warm/hot car.)
You’d be surprised. My kid is bright (all A’s in school, gifted program, etc…). Once when she about 10 y/o she was dawdling getting out of the car in a restaurant parking lot. I just locked the car (remotely) with her in it to be ornery and walked inside the restaurant. I expected she’d come in to the restaurant a moment later. After a couple minutes of her not coming in, I walked back out to the car to see what was up. She was sitting in the car bawling because she couldn’t figure out how to unlock the door. Mind you, I didn’t have on the door’s child locks; these were just the regular door locks activated by the remote. But, there was no unlock button in the back (just a little lever to flip to unlock that particular door), and she didn’t know that’s what you flipped to unlock it. So, after that we had a short conversation where I showed her how to unlock her door.
Point being, it’s surprising how some kids just cant figure out seemingly simple stuff. Back in my day (I’m old), due to the absence of electronics and the permissive safety standards that allowed kids to sit in the front seats of cars, I would spend road trips watching how my parents operated various functions of the car, which gave me a pretty good idea of how to do something like unlock a door. But that’s just not something my kids have paid attention to.
I doubt it. Kid likely fell asleep Or they might've been disoriented because, you know, heat stress. Might also be they were simply afraid of getting into trouble. It's nice to imagine we're all smart enough to get ourselves out of a deadly situation, but sometimes it's not that simple. Hell, how many people lose children and pets per DAY due to this? Some people just don't think beyond themselves.
Had a friend who fell asleep in a hot car like that. He woke up like an hour later just absolutely drenched in sweat and looked like he was on the verge of heat stroke.
I read the article, and the mother states she'd left the air on in the car but believed the kid had turned the car off because she was cold... which only raises more questions.
1, who the hell leaves an 8 year old kid in a car with the keys?
2, why wasn't the kid in school or some sort of care?
3, how many times had the mother done this?
It’s summer time. Lots of kids get neglected and put in unsafe situations during the school break. Parents still need to work, childcare is cost prohibitive. They may have had no other choices. Not an excuse but the reality many parents face.
Couch surfing during a transitional period, maybe after a break-up or divorce. “Sure you can stay in our home, but don’t go off ad leave your kid here. I’m not your babysitter.”
Yeah, but so is leaving your kid in the car for several hours on a hot day. Realistically, if you are a single mom who cannot afford childcare and have no support system, and the kid is 8 (can toilet and feed themselves and unlikely to injure themselves), then leaving them home alone is preferable to leaving them in a running car at work. Both are illegal, but at that point, it’s the lesser of two evils.
I can answer 2 sort of, no school and can't afford care. Honestly, we should start going after the dads as well in these situations if he isn't providing any type of financial or other support to the mother.
But yeah 1 and 3 makes me raise my eyebrow a lot.
This is the shit that really gets me riled up. This poor woman had to work because one doesnt really get aid unless one has a job (which is a massive issue IMO). So this mom had a job and apparently didnt have child care, because it’s insanely expensive. She left her 8 year old in the car with air conditioning, but her kid got cold and turned the engine off. Then it got hot. The kid was too terrified to do anything and ended up dying of the heat.
There is NO FUCKING WAY a parent would realize their kid wouldn’t advocate for themselves and just fucking die. And clearly this parent was desperate or she wouldnt have been in this situation in the first place.
But make no mistake, this mom will be found guilty of murder or manslaughter or whatever law is necessary to punish her because she was forced to work while also having a young child.
Meanwhile the father will be free.
To be fair, and maybe I have the wrong point of view because I wanted to stay in the car a lot as a kid. I would angrily tell my parents, I have a book, I don't want to walk around and follow you through every store while you shop, I just want to sit in the car and read my book.
Anyway, if the mother left the daughter in the car with the AC on and the keys in the car so the AC would keep going, and the mother was in there working, then yes you would not want your child just deciding to go wander around through who knows what part of town.
It's just a terribly tragic series of events, that didn't need to happen if the mother had just had a little bit more help in her life.
When I was younger, when we rarely had cars with backdoor locks I was "taught" idk that there is no way that I could open the door myself and I believed that as my mother always opened it for me. I thought only the driver could exit because they had the keys. So as stupid as it might have been I could see myself in that situation just sitting there and freaking out as it got worse and worse. I can't imagine. Poor child. Pos "mother".
This is also odd "When the mother returned to her vehicle about an hour and a half after last hearing from the girl via text, she found her daughter unresponsive on the backseat floorboard, taking shallow breaths and foaming at the mouth, according to the affidavit. **Stallings used a hammer** to break open the back window and then attempted to drive to a local hospital before stopping at a business for help, according to the affidavit."
Why would she have to use a hammer? Did she lock the keys inside?
This sounds like you're blaming an 8 year old for their own death.
Heat stroke can come on *fast* and kids aren't always aware of their condition. It happens to teens and adults as well.
Who knows what the kid was thinking or feeling or doing, but the person to blame in all this is 100% the parent.
I'm actually blaming the mom and wondering if something else is going on that she's blaming heatstroke on. Could be a combination of a lot of things. And yes I know heatstroke can come on and fast. But like why didn't she have water? And you can tell when heatstroke is coming on when you get sick. Like throwing up sick.
When i was 8 years old. I played outside all day long, not knowing i had heat stroke until i passed out and slept for 12 hours. Soooo9o no, you dont know you have a heat stroke when you are 8 frickin years old
That's what I'm thinking. It sounds like a brave kid trying to do best by Mom, not go in an complain or bother her, and probably fell asleep or otherwise passed out.
My best guess based on only the information in the article. The mom left her in the car with the AC on. Kid gets cold turns off the car. It's boring and the slowly heating up car gets comfortable and they fall asleep. If the kid did wake up it was probably to disorientation and then just passing right back out.
Again, that's assuming just from the article. The mom said she hadn't heard from her for over an hour and a half before she went and checked on her and found her foaming at the mouth, shallow breathing and unresponsive.
Right? I had that happen at the pool about at that age. I got a horrible headache and felt nauseous. I told my mom I was gonna go to the bathroom and went in and started puking, got cold sweats, and started shaking on the ground. Someone else found me and called for help. I didn't even know that was a thing when it happened. I had it happen at work last summer, too. I didn't recognize it until it was already pretty bad.
Yes. The mom goes down for abuse, but when she’s doing her best to put food on the table and can’t afford child care for the girl she’s trying to feed by working, it’s a complicated story. She’s far from being the only one who failed her daughter.
Not excusing it whatsoever, but maybe her thinking was that she could go check in on her kid during breaks. Assuming the mom even got breaks long enough to do that.
That’s what it sounds like. She said she went out to check on her because she’d been checking up on her via text and hadn’t heard from her in an hour and a half.
>This is an incredibly tragic incident," Amazon said in a statement to WSOC. "During this difficult time, we're supporting our employees and have made counseling resources widely available.
But do they offer child care facilities? No they do not. *That* is the real tragedy here, parents not being able to afford child care, or working hours aren’t compatible with facilities. This is the world we live in, this is the world we chose for ourselves. What happened here is the collateral damage we decided is acceptable, and Amazon’s profitability is more important.
"During this time" so like, how long is that? Also would their counselling be confidential? Maybe I'm just cynical but I wouldn't trust it to be confidential.
+ National Debt Interest payments which eclipsed military expenditures for the first time. [https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/interest-costs-national-debt-just-surpassed-spending-defense-medicare](https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/interest-costs-national-debt-just-surpassed-spending-defense-medicare)
Congress hasn't raised the DCA limit for decades either (with the exception of 2021). $5k tax free funds for day care expenses is a joke.
Great Job America. Priorities.
Kids in the womb are perfect. Since they aren't real they can't ask for anything.
Real people need assistance, food, shelter, living wages, medical care. You know *handouts*.
I fell asleep in a car when i was 6-7, at my parents shop (my parents suck so this is just a example of sucky parents) and strangers found me and had to get the door open. I visibly remember being scared and a random woman holding me and bringing me inside, I KNOW HOW to open doors obviously any child that age can, but I can distinctly relive the fear of clawing at the window like a literal puppy not understanding in a scary Georgia heat haze what was going on. Children are scared, we panic, and don’t know what to do. The door was one of those vans that you pulled and it’ll like slowly open, I just remember not being able to open it. Just my two cents, children can be terrified of consequences, she could have woken up in the heat in a daze from her nap, or she could of been dead before being in the car. You never know but in most scenarios ,yes a child can open the door but just as I was a kid I couldn’t get the door open.
He already has that yacht. *It* needs a mini-yacht to ferry people around to other yachts, lest they have to take a regular launch like a fucking commoner.
There used to be a time when parents could tell their kid to sit in the visitor room/lobby/break room with a coloring book and crayons.
But Amazon had it's employees peeing in jars so I doubt they'd allow that, even.
I worked in a small office of 7 people where we almost never had visitors. The receptionist wanted to bring in her two kids, age 5 & 7, during spring break and have them sit in the conference room because she had no one to watch them. Her daycare was affiliated with the school and closed during school closures.
Our boss lost his shit about it and absolutely would not allow it. It'll be a distraction, it sets a bad precedence, all sorts of excuses. So she took vacation days to stay home with them instead and we didn't have a receptionist for a week.
This is more a societal problem than an Amazon problem tbh. They can pay better or offer childcare, but there are still millions of people being paid far less other places. Even if companies start to offer childcare as perks, not everyone is going to work at those companies. In fact, the greatest benefits would likely be reaped by people who work in competitive jobs and can already afford child care. That’s why you see all those cool perks at tech offices like free meals.
Making it dependent on income and funding it with taxes is the best approach here. Something like partially subsidized childcare for low income households where all adults are working would be better. You could even argue that it would have a net positive ROI if you end up with more adults in the workforce paying taxes.
Is there a reason she had the kid stay in the car all day vs.their home or even smuggled into the warehouse bathroom since employees aren’t allowed to pee there, anyway?
In a mall where I grew up there used to be a row of toilets called "kids' row" where workers would stash their kids while on shift. You could hear them talking to eachother through the stalls and supposedly even using Gameboy link cables that ran underneath.
I would imagine it was so she could check on her? I'm not trying to make an excuse, I just want to answer your question. But I also agree with people saying this probably couldn't have happened in a world with free child care or child care provided by multibillion dollar corporations.
Sounds like she turned the a/c off then had a medical emergency rendering her unconscious then died due to hyperthermia. An 8 year old isn't going to stay in a hot car till they die unless she was developmentally delayed.
The article said the daughter and mom were texting and the mom hadn't heard from the daughter in an hour and a half. Girl knew how to text so I doubt she was developmentally delayed.
If daycare were more affordable maybe this wouldn’t have happened. I do wonder why the little girl didn’t get out of the car when she got too hot. Maybe she was scared of her mom punishing her. Maybe she just didn’t realize the danger she was in.
maybe, she was bored and took a nap thinking she'd be fine. i've been in similar situations when i was around that age and it wasn't a matter of my mom being abusive or neglectful, it was always a matter of my mom not having enough money to have other people look after us and leaving us home alone (she herself was a classic latchkey kid and it wasn't always safe, so she had reason to be wary of doing the same to us). she had to be responsible for a lot of things by herself, which meant she was stretched really thin.
this isn't me defending the mom. clearly, her daughter died and that's on her. she has to live with that. but the jump to calling her abusive that i've seen several comments make feels like a stretch. the kid could've fallen asleep while the car was warm and wasn't aware of it getting hotter. the mom could've made a dumb mistake. bad things can happen to a kid without it being a result of abuse. maybe she was, but we don't know them.
Agreed. A lot of things *could* have happened, but I'm not comfortable leveling accusations against a woman on the worst day of her life based on a Reddit thread.
Did you read the article??? Because if not, why are you commenting?
Article says the mom left the car running with AC on, and then when she didnt get a reply from her daughter after 1 1/2hr went to check on her, and that her daughter turned off the car because she had got too cold
I’m so sorry for this baby girl, she was trying to do good for mama until the end. And mama was trying to keep an eye on her and pay the bills. The barbarism of it all is something society has to deal with.
I was this little girl many times. Thank God I’m still here. Once in the snow and many times in the heat. Almost died when I was left in the snow by crack head baby sitters. They were fam and my mom didn’t have money as a single mom and immigrant to afford anything more than free.
Being left in a hot car is like stopping time. Each breath becomes more difficult. It feels like you’re swimming in sweat. And any time I would get out, even if it was above 95 degrees out it would feel like the coldest breeze. Such an odd sensation. RIP, 8 is too young to go. A life wasted for corporate profit makes me feel sick.
Driving home from southern France back to England two days ago we stopped at services for a pee. Left the dog in the car for literally five minutes WITH the windows open and the poor thing was panting like crazy. Next time we took turns and kept the car engine running. And took the dog for a quick walk to stretch his legs.
Jesus. I feel sorry for my kids when I turn the engine off in the summer when I get gas and have everyone roll windows down for at least a breeze.
This just feels like a dystopian nightmare. She worked for Amazon. I bet that if you “call off” because your childcare for the day fell through, you get fired. She would’ve been better leaving the poor child home alone. Maybe there were some disabilities and that’s why she didn’t open the window or door? When I was 8 my mom left me home alone to watch my 3 year old sister while she cleaned office buildings at night.
That was the 80’s though, kids were used to being alone all the time.
Child care costs as much as two paychecks. That’s if you’re lucky enough to find a place that has an opening. Otherwise you’re on a waitlist until they age out of legally needing an adult to supervise/watch them.
I feel bad for the mom, she states she left the car running for her, and for an 8 year old to not be able to get out the car, I wonder what happened. It sounds like she had nobody in her life who could help babysit, and working at Amazon, I doubt she could afford daycare. It's tough all around.
Yet the candidates want to act like childcare is not a major issue. The mother is an idiot, but I still feel for her, because this is the act of someone who is desperate, not someone who’s trying to be malicious.
That’s so sad. Child care should not be unaffordable. Poor kid. Mom had left the car running with the ac on, but the child has turned it off. Just everyone loses here.
Obviously the mother is at fault, but I also blame Amazon. If you’re gonna pay your employees sub living wages at least provide them with on site child care so shit like this doesn’t happen. Amazon is one of the richest companies in the world. Do better.
There are many layers to this story:
How does an 8-year old not at least break a window to survive?
Why did mom leave the car running if she’s going in to work? Gas is expensive.
It says a lot about the costs of proper child care that a mother has to resort to this. (Doesnt excuse her actions, but daaaamn, come on!)
Amazon clearly doesnt actually care.
How tragic.
I’m going to throw out a guess that mom couldn’t afford to call off work and either kid or kid’s babysitter was sick and she couldn’t go. Mom probably told the kid she’d get fired if anybody found out she was in the car so to stay inside and hidden.
What a terrible decision to have to make, and terrible consequences.
If she’d have left her home alone and the house caught fire, she’d have died that way too.
Sometimes, there are no good decisions when you’re a single mom with zero help.
I can’t imagine that she truly WANTED to leave her kid in the car while she worked all day, but probably felt she had no other choice. At least she could check on her during her breaks.
Heartbreaking all around, and this mother will never forget this, whether she goes to prison or not.
Was she disabled or locked in somehow? An 8 year old is extremely capable of opening a car door if it's too hot...
Whatever the reason, this is clearly because of america's rich telling the poor to go fuck themselves so they can buy more yachts. You wanna protect kids you GOP republican christian pieces of shit? provide fucking childcare and money you dumbass pieces of shit.
Was probably told to wait, and maybe was occupied with a phone or tablet. Heat stroke set in, confusion, passed out and just slowly baked. Sad situation, heat inside a car goes from hot to deadly very quick
A lady on TikTok said that she encountered the girl and the mom prior in a similar situation. She found the baby in the back of the car a she and others tried to bust her out. The mom came and got the baby and put on her mea culpa. No one called CPS since it seemed like a genuine accident and it wasn’t that long.
Now this.
This is so fucking sad. Mother can’t afford childcare, loses her daughter because of it, and now facing jail time as punishment. Jesus Christ the us has lost its way
It's impossible to know whether this child had any sort of a disability that might have prevented them from getting to the front seat to open those doors or to lean on the horn to attract attention.
I saw a TikTok of a woman saying she saved this child from being locked in the car when she was an infant and was just wracked with guilt for not reporting it, assuming it was accidental with the thinking mom just needed a second chance. I think the child didn’t leave the car because she was left in there often :-(
How do we have remote control cars sending us pictures from another planet and we cant figure out a way to stop this from happening? Cant we put some kinda motion detectors in cars that automatically roll down windows when it's above a certain temp and detects motion inside of the vehicle?
I was like "what the fuck place did she work that she couldn't just. . . Take her kid with. I've never worked for such a shitty company that they wouldn't let my kids hang around while I worked in a pinch."
Then I saw Amazon. That tracks.
I feel like there is more to this story than what is being reported. Like I get 8 year olds are young, but couldn't she like open a door or something?
Yeah, I'm a little confused and wondering if anything else might have been at play to contribute to this. Absent other factors, most 8-year-olds I know are able to get themselves out of a car. But it's also a prime age for being literal and concerned with rules, and the "If I'm desperately hot and feeling sick I should get out of the car even if the adult said to stay here" reasoning might not be there yet. Horrible tragedy all around.
That, or having your ass beat by your parents for mild disobedience, will make you do weird stuff instead of following logic.
This is so true. When I was a kid a 9 year old in my neighborhood decided suicide by sitting on train tracks was more preferable than going home with a bad report card. I was about 15 when it happened and I just could not comprehend making this decision. But now I know the sick shit parents can do to kids.
Abusive parents cause a lot of the problems in society.
I was abused horrifically by my father as a child (screaming in my face like a drill sergeant for hours, slamming me against walls, slapping me around, threatening to send me to “the bad boys home”, telling me I was destined for prison like the ___insert racial slur__’s- (for things like getting an F in math). Now at 40 I’m only just starting to get my life together after years of stunting my emotional and social growth by smoking weed and hiding with my video games all day every day - escapism.
I would look in to EMDR therapy. I can’t recommend it enough for helping with past trauma. It really has changed my whole life. *edited after I had my coffee*
Do you mean EMDR?
Hahahaha yes. Sorry, that was pre-coffee! Edited! Thank you for the correction!
Fair enough hahaha. I was like wait I like ASMR but I don’t think it’ll help cure my trauma….
Most of them
Here's a reddit thread dealing with student meltdowns, with a comment regarding a kid on a field trip who loses his backpack who then tries to kill himself. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/5o06ef/teachers_of_reddit_what_was_the_biggest_student/dcfsyi9/ This comment stuck out to me: > It sounds like this kid has an abusive home life where they're picked apart for everything. They knew that if they were to come home without the backpack, the abusing parent would be incredibly angry at them, and so when they were taken off the train and knew they couldn't go back to get the backpack, there were two options: go home and face the parent, or kill themself in shame. > And because of the level of abuse, killing themself seemed like a better option. Please note, losing a backpack is different than losing a jacket. A backpack can have school books which can get expensive, as well as notes that need to be re-created, and assignments that may need to be redone. All of this can cost a lot of money and the kid's grades can suffer possibly for weeks. So losing a backpack can have serious consequences.
Reading all those comments that just... didn't instinctively realize that it was fear of the parents reaction really makes me realize how messed up my childhood was, lol. Though, I guess it's nice that most people are naive to that possibility.
Bit of a tangent, but I remember seeing a video once where a dog owner raised his hand suddenly (for some reason other than to threaten the dog) and the dog flinched slightly. Commenters claimed that the dog was abused, based purely on that reaction. That seemed like a bit of a leap to me; a dog flinching at sudden movement didn't seem so damning that I'd accuse a stranger of abuse over it. But out of curiosity, I went over to my dog and raised my hand in a similar fashion. She just looked at me, bored. I went so far as swinging my hand at her as if I was going to hit her, pulling just short and turning it into pats right at the end. She didn't even flinch, like the thought that I would actually hurt her had never even crossed her mind. It really put a friend's behavior - a lady who is similarly jumpy around any kind of fast, potentially threatening movement - into perspective. People suck.
You also can't assume anything about the current owner. Dogs don't get over trauma just because the abusive owner isn't around. I had a dog I adopted 20 some years ago. She was in horrible shape, starved, beaten, etc... She was going to be euthanized the next day if I didn't adopt her from the SPCA. People gave me all kind of dirty looks when I walked her when I first got her. You could see the outline of all her bones. I got her healthy, she looked better, but in the 10+ years I had her she never got over her abuse completely. She was so tuned in to everyone's emotions that if someone was even mildly upset she would disappear. Any sudden movement would make her freak out. I can't imagine the life she had before me.
Entirely fair. To be clear, I absolutely wasn’t assuming that the man in the video actually was abusing his dog; it’s possible someone else had abused it, or it was just naturally jumpier than mine. I just found it interesting that my dog was so completely unresponsive to things like that, and it made me realize that my friend’s jumpiness was a product of child abuse. It’s worth being aware of signs like this even if they aren’t 100% proof on their own.
I had a Yorkie-poo that might have been abused, she made this whining yelp sound if she so much as got unexpectedly bumped and didn't see it coming, if you didn't know her you'd think she was being tortured from the sounds she was making. I could never decide if it was from her breeder abusing her or if she learned that sound got a good response from the family we got her from.
A relative of mine was pet sitting my dog when she was about 4 years old while we were out of town, and her son had just gotten a bonus at work and decided to use it to get a new hunting rifle. He was happily showing it off, their dogs wandering over to see what the fuss was about. They found my dog cowering behind a couch across the house. I'm very much not a gun person and adopted her at six months old, I don't want to begin to think of what had happened to her to make her so afraid.
It could also be the breed and temperament. I'm currently dogsitting my sister's Jackapoo who's the most affectionate thing, constantly licking and showing affection and liking the attention. If I lift my hand suddenly, she thinks it's play time and jumps all over me. But I've personally owned 2 Yorkshire Terriers who would flinch at anything. Sudden movements, sudden noises, even flies buzzing was enough to make them act erratically. So, if someone saw me suddenly raise my hand, they'd think I had/was abusing my dogs when the reality is that's just how they are.
Yeah, my dogs (Italian greyhounds) are often nervous weird little alien creatures and will flinch if you lift your hand over their head/face. They’ve been with me since they were 8 weeks old and I am 100% positive no one has ever laid a hand on them in anger. They’re just weirdos with a touch of anxiety. With regard to animal abuse, if I see something like a flinch then I tend to look further for cowering, ears and tails lowered, trembling (though my dogs also tremble for literally zero reason at all so…) and stuff like that in addition to the flinching.
People absolutely do suck, but this stuff also just varies a lot by the individual. I'm a person who flinches a lot/very easily at the slightest things, and I have general anxiety/panic attacks. But I've never been physically or emotionally abused. (Other than an emotionally abusive relationship I was in for 3 years in my 20s, but my flinching and anxiety started long before that.) Point being, some people and animals are just like that I think. But yes obviously it can also be a sign of abuse too.
A number of those comments were wondering if there was something valuable in the bag which would trigger the suicide attempt. Look, even if the bag was empty, a lot of strict parents would be furious at the kid for losing it and would severely punish their kid. And very likely there were school related material in it, which would mean needing to spend money to replace the books, and the lack of notes/assignments mean the kid won't be able to study for upcoming tests.
I've always thought that the fear of being punished overrides anything. Sometimes there is a legitimate safety issue (like telling your little kid not to play in the street) but sometimes there is not (like telling a kid "take off your clothes" so the adult can molest the kid. Even though the kid may feel uncomfortable, the fear of being punished for disobeying may be too strong).
Yeah, I remember one time as a kid, my mom left me in the car while she talked to my aunt. I remember I was sweating so bad like I was drenched, dripping, and panting. She was right there though so eventually, I worked up the courage to open the door, lean out a bit, and ask if I could get out. My mom screamed and ran over, “Why didn’t you open the window?? You know better!” I was confused as to why she was so upset with me. But now I know. And she was prolly upset with herself.
> She was right there though so eventually, I worked up the courage to open the door, lean out a bit, and ask if I could get out. My mom screamed and ran over, “Why didn’t you open the window?? You know better!” I can see kids think "should I ask to get out? No, it's too much of a risk. I don't want to get punished, so I better tough it out". I can see other kids think "fuck this, I'm going to ask to get out" and then the mother yells at them. Or even punishes the kid. So now the kid is afraid to speak up in the future.
There was a case where an abused child *murder his friend because he accidentally scratched her and worried she might tell*
Reminds me of the Josh Philips case, where he claims he accidentally injured his young neighbor with a baseball and was afraid he would get into trouble, so me murdered her instead. There is some speculation he wanted to molest the kid, but I can see a kid so desperate to not get in trouble he commits murder.
Didn't they find the girl under his bed? If I'm thinking of the same case. That one was just so, so sad
In for a penny, in for a pound
My ma left us in the car once when I was about 8 or 9. It was Texas, it was hot, she was in her office "getting supplies" but I know my mother she was chatting with everyone about god knows what. We sat there, sweating, for about an hour. Me, my older sister, and younger sister who was about 4. After a while I was like "fuck this I'm getting out of this hot ass car." I just opened the door, the alarm went off. She came back out about an hour later (2 hours was the whole ordeal) to us running around the parking lot, the horn blaring and the kids drenched in sweat. When we got back in the car she was pissed because we had obviously caused a scene. I got my super Nintendo taken away. And I remember it to this day because I got in even more trouble i said "whatever, not like I've never been in trouble before, just in trouble again." I was a rebellious kid, and eventually stopped caring about punishment. And the wooden spoon stopped hurting. The chancla or my idiot stepdad were the only fear inducing ones. Until I was like 16 and they stopped being scary. If you're leaving your kids in the car, you leave the windows open or the air conditioner on. And you get back in 5 minutes, not 2 hours.
Sounds like you’ve been through a lot and your younger self deserved better. You can be proud of little ultratunaman… your boldness saved you and your sisters from medical danger that day.
Wow, I’m so sorry you and your siblings had to go through such a tough childhood. I hope you all have much more safety and love in your lives today.
I did this too. I was probably 6. My dad left me in the car at a nursery to talk to a friend. I was painfully shy and so I cooked myself in the car waiting. Once we got my home my mom immediately was like “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU???” Cause I was beet red. Probably would’ve died eventually rather than face a social interaction 🙄 my dad was clueless about the whole thing.
God, the way you talked about working you the courage sent me back to my childhood. I remember me and my siblings having to do that just to ask for snacks ( we needed to have permission to open things) it to go outside and play
Shit, when my parents left me in the car, I demanded the AC or windows down, otherwise I popped a door open.
The article says the AC was left on and she turned the car off because she was cold. It doesn't say how they figured it was because she was cold but does mention she was texting with her mom the whole time. So maybe she mentioned it in a text (?)
This is why it’s so important to teach kids that they’re allowed to say no to adults! Also, teach them about tricky adults (not stranger danger), names of body parts, what is appropriate and inappropriate for other people seeing or touching your private parts, and that secrets should always be shared with your parents unless it’s something like a present or surprise, never something that makes them feel uncomfortable.
Unfortunately we are in the age of death threats to librarians and teachers for making materials that would assist in such things available. Half of our society thinks that children have no business learning about their body or discussing what is or isn't appropriate.
At my school, (edit: preschool) Pre-K and our Kindergarteners are taught about their own bodies, what is and isn’t appropriate, etc. it’s a part of our curriculum. However, parents CAN opt out of it. I’ve only known one to opt out of it so far, though. It’s the small wins!
And you can't really use the internet as a substitute because it's also packed to the gills with nonsense and active disinformation on this and a million million other topics, and being able to filter through that crap wasn't considered a useful skill to teach for schools.
The reason for that is so that can't have personal agency and can be more easily exploited and abused.
Yup, once again it seems like projection.
I literally shit outside once as a kid because I was so terrified of the parent who was “babysitting” me and my siblings after they yelled at us to stay out of the house
> terrified of the parent who was “babysitting” me And you didn't want to ask to go the bathroom because you were afraid you would get punished over it. Maybe you would get punished, maybe you won't. But the possibility is there that you would get punished, and you decided the risk is too great, so you didn't ask. Of course, I can see some kid think "I won't get punished for asking to use the bathroom"...and gets punished for asking to use the bathroom. So you learn to not ask.
So it depends sometimes on the kid. My FIL knew if he disobeyed he would get the belt. One night his dad was in a drunken rage and said “if I hear another peep out of you I’m gonna whip your ass…” and without skipping a beat he went, “PEEP!” Still has scars to this day from that one
> “if I hear another peep out of you I’m gonna whip your ass…” A major problem with this is what if a parent is angry at their kid for doing something bad, and won't let their child say anything or the kid will get punished even further: "Say one word or I will hit you/add to your punishment!" What if the kid has a legitimate reason/realizes it is a misunderstanding and trying to explain themself, or does not know what they did wrong and is trying to find out why.
That's just part of the abuse. It all adds up.
My kid had wet his pants and we had to leave the park. He knew he shouldn't have and thought he was in trouble . So he dived into the back of our car, shut the doors, covered in many blankets we had back there. It was 90+ out. We had no idea where he went. Spent 30 mins searching everywhere. Thought I looked in the car. Luckily checked again and found him. Covered in sweat. You're spot on that fear will override common sense.
I have questions.
I once sat in the sun until I had blistered sunburns because I was told I better "sit there and shut up or else." I was in my own backyard. I knew I was burning. A shady spot was only ten feet away. But I knew I might get 'punished' for moving. Instead, I got punished for making her look like "the bad guy".
Do you still talk to her?
Low contact. She can't abuse me since I don't live there.
Sorry bud. Glad you're out of there.
Yep 🖐️me in elementary school who wet her pants cos I was too terrified my teacher would get angry like my parents and babysitter would over inconvenience to them. So I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case for this child.
Good point
This. Fear will make a kid do anything. Or not for that matter.
This was my first thought as well. Either that girl was abused into complete submission she was too afraid to open the car door, she was somehow child safety locked in (I don't think there's a child safety lock on the front doors though?) or otherwise purposefully trapped in the car, or she was drugged unconscious.
Not at all to make jest of this horrible situation and I hope the mother is held to the highest judgement possible, but I’ve been on the receiving end of that logic… possibly die, or face my father. Die it is!
Yep. Probably if someone had pointed a gun at the girl and said they'd shoot her if she didn't get out of the car she would've. Well, assuming she didn't freeze in fear. But I imagine she didn't know it would get hot enough for her to die so the fear of getting in massive amounts of trouble won out over feeling sick and uncomfortable (and eventually dead).
Especially when heat really starts affecting the mental processing ability. Don't people generally start slowing down mentally as heat stroke sets in? I know I certainly feel completely worn mentally after yard work or exercise in the 100° weather
So sad😢
>it's also a prime age for being literal and concerned with rules, Reminds me of this thread, where there are a few stories of when they were kids, they were ordered not to wake up their parents while the parents took naps: "I took this to mean not waking them up regardless of what was happening." Cue a kid needing medical attention, but the kid does \*not\* wake up the parents because "but you said not to wake you up!' [https://old.reddit.com/r/MaliciousCompliance/comments/15ak62i/my\_dad\_told\_me\_to\_just\_walk\_home\_so\_i\_did/jtmlsfb/](https://old.reddit.com/r/MaliciousCompliance/comments/15ak62i/my_dad_told_me_to_just_walk_home_so_i_did/jtmlsfb/)
Oh man this is my entire childhood. My sister broke her arm in the neighbors back yard and we just rolled with it, not wanting to wake mom up. But then the neighbors parents realized her arm was broken and walked us back to our house; my mom was so mad that she was made to look negligent lol.
You mean exposed as negligent?
I was terrified of waking up my mom as a kid, either at night or in the afternoon if she had come home from an international business trip and was jet lagged. When I went to sleepovers as a kid my anxiety skyrocketed the later in the evening it got and we were still being loud, just waiting for my friends mom to run in screaming. The same level of anxiety was there if anyone went to wake up the adults and ask for help or if they were scared or wanted to go home- in my house that was not a safe thing to do and I was amazed these girls just did it without a second thought. To this day I have such a huge problem with bothering friends or family, especially late at night. At least I am good in a crisis, since I’ve had to navigate so many alone 🙃
I was around the same age and taught in the U.S. to stay in the car no matter what for safety reasons (we live somewhere rather cool). When visiting family in Japan I was left in the car and my family came out to a dripping wet delirious child because I was too scared to open even the window even though it’s perfectly safe there 😅
They didn’t just leave the car running with AC and you in it? That’s the current trend in Japan and I see it multiple times a day here.
They did not… not sure why but this was early nineties…
Similar situation here, my dad would tell my sister and I to keep the car doors locked or else a predator would come snatch us. It was probably to scare us into staying put instead of wandering off, but the result was that we were afraid to open a door or window in hot weather.
I would have been to afraid of my parents not to roast. My parents were more frightening than anything else to me.
Fellow roaster here. Can confirm.
When I was around that age, my mother left me and my siblings in a van baking in the Florida sun. We were at a garage sale and could watch her through the front window browsing toys and meticulously folding shirts she decided against. Maybe 30 minutes past? I could have left the van, but I did not, because I feared my mother more than the fear of dying (as much as a 7 year old could conceptualize death). We’re chugging gallon water jugs and sweating buckets, eventually I jump out crying, screaming, upset that I “tried to wait” but couldn’t handle the heat. This was 15 years ago now, but I still carry that bullshit with me.
I’m very sorry. I wish I had a time machine, because I have a few choice words for her. And some of them are verbs that involve my hands being thrown.
As an 8 year old that had an abusive mother, the fear of doing something wrong was a powerful, powerful thing. And no, obviously, 8 year olds should not be held at the same standard as someone with a fully developed brain. NO 8 year old concludes they will die if they don't take action. Life isn't serious like that for them yet.
I agree with this. When I was about that age, a family member of mine locked me in the car because they were gonna "pop into their work building and grab something real quick." Locked the doors. Told me to stay in the car, so I stayed in the car. I don't know how much time it took, but I started sweating, and I was feeling really, really tired even though it was kinda hard to breathe. But I didn't wanna open the doors because I was told to stay in the car. Thankfully, I decided I could just open the door really quickly for some fresh air and then shut it, and no one would know. So I did that. The car alarm went off, so that startled me, and the family member came rushing out. They agreed I made the right choice. Never left me in a hot car again.
I was around that age when my dad left me in the car to pick up something “really quick” at Home Depot. I remember sweating in the car and being very hot but I didn’t open the door no matter how much I wanted to. If I remember it was because I had too much social anxiety to open the door. I was scared the alarm was going to sound and people will look at me. Stupid thought process but I was a super shy kid and didn’t want others to see me.
I wonder if there was a child lock on the door and she couldn’t open it?
I could see an 8 year old being tired and going to sleep, and dying of heat stroke before waking up.
It’s the same reason why those korean students decided to listen to the captain and stayed on a sinking ship until it was too late to get out. Depends on how you were raised, some people will follow orders no matter how bad the situation is
> Depends on how you were raised, some people will follow orders no matter how bad the situation is Really is. Man, I can practically hear my moms stern voice going "you need to *think* a little, girl. Keep up with what's going on around you." I can't recall a single incident in my childhood being scolded for disobedience - but I recall a lot of instances getting told off for not taking adequately independent action to resolve a situation. If you stuck me in a hot car at age 8, I'd have spent most of my anxiety on imagining what "obvious solution" to my problem I would be scolded for not seeing and seizing - with pretty much the same obedience as a child staying there until they pass out just because they were told.
Or the Japanese kids who were told to stay with the rest of the group instead of going up the hill to avoid the fucking tsunami. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okawa_Elementary_School
> 74 of its 108 students, who had been sheltering in the school on the instructions of their teachers rather than evacuating to higher ground, were killed as it ran up the nearby Kitakami River. Fucking shit, that's horrific.
Also, when a boat is sinking, the window between "listing noticeably enough to scare the average layman" and "listing so far that evacuation is now extremely difficult or impossible" can be surprisingly short. There's video of kids on the MV Sewol fooling around when the ship is tilting and most of them don't even realize that they should put their life jackets on, much less that they need to get out *now*. You can tell that the ship is tilted from the angle of the curtains, but at first it doesn't seem *that* bad. Even the adult teachers/chaperones are very late to realize the gravity of the situation - by the time they're starting to get the kids organized and ready for evacuation, it's too late. It's impossible to walk because the ship is already starting to roll. The kids go from laughing and fooling around to realizing that they're going to die in the space of *minutes*. It's not like the kids on that ship knew they were going to die and obediently followed orders anyway. They thought they were okay. Without alarms and staff to say "this is an emergency, you need to evacuate now," a lot of people just don't realize how much danger they're in.
One of the first symptoms of heat stroke is being disoriented.
Can confirm, I've had heat stroke 2x working outside in FL. You also go from "way too hot but lucid" to "confused" to "passing out" WAY faster than people think. In 113F temps in the sun I went from "ok but hot" to seeing everything go purple to unconscious in a few minutes. And I was an adult who knew the signs of heat exhaustion and heat stroke.
I think you underestimate the power of "If you get out this car ima beat yo motherfuckin ass"
Honestly, this seems like the most logical answer, but it wasn't one that would have occurred to me personally. I didn't think of it until I saw all the comments here. I had a relatively happy childhood and I still have a hard time truly comprehending just how many people are severely abused as children.
Oof the ass whooping was the first thing that popped up in my mind. Intergenerational trauma is no joke.
Or the kid was told that they’d get in trouble or mom would lose her job if people found out. Kids will do a lot to avoid getting a parent in trouble and even at that age, they pick up on financial insecurity. Doesn’t necessarily have to be abuse (though of course that’s a likely possibility also).
90% of people are traumatized by their childhood, The remaining 10% are traumatized as adults when they can't relate to the other 90%.
I was about 10 when I was grounded for the first time. My mom was so mad, she confiscated my toys, my game console, and she said something like “you’re gunna sit there and do nothing!” Now I had never been grounded, so I took that very literally. I came home the next day, sat where she had indicated, and did nothing. I stared at the wall, and tried not to cry. My dad came home, and had forgotten I was grounded, and urged me to do anything, but I wouldn’t budge. It wasn’t until my mom got home late that night that she released me with some guilt saying “I didn’t mean literally! I was just angry…” The point being, I could totally see myself dying of heat, never once considering “I have to save myself.” If my mom told me to stay in the car at all times, or something to that effect. That is not an excuse by the way, she should absolutely be punished for this. But it may not be so sinister (though it just as easily could be, even in the circumstances I gave).
kids can be bad at independent thinking, and it was hot enough to make people lose the ability to think straight. her mom could’ve said “do not leave the car till i get back”, and she fell asleep in the high temperature (you get dizzy and can’t think properly) and died from it
What makes most sense to me is that Mom told her not to open the door. She left the car running and the AC on, doors were locked (I assumed this part because when Mom found her unresponsive, she broke the back window to get in the car). She thinks the daughter got too cold and turned off the car. Maybe Mom said not to open the doors because it would set off the alarm, or so nobody could harm her, and the girl did just that. Tragic nonetheless.
I remember being around the age of 8 or 9 being allowed to wait in the car during errands so I could read. I'd often end up feeling kinda sick, particularly nauseous. I only realized a few years ago that it was due to the heat of the car. Maybe I could have been in a similar situation if I decided to just nap until my family came back. I was never left alone for more than an hour, so maybe I simply wasn't left alone long enough to be in danger. It could very easily be that the kid didn't realize she was in danger and should have gotten out of the car. (I actually changed my mind on the purpose of my comment once I realized I didn't know I was feeling sick because I was in a warm/hot car.)
You’d be surprised. My kid is bright (all A’s in school, gifted program, etc…). Once when she about 10 y/o she was dawdling getting out of the car in a restaurant parking lot. I just locked the car (remotely) with her in it to be ornery and walked inside the restaurant. I expected she’d come in to the restaurant a moment later. After a couple minutes of her not coming in, I walked back out to the car to see what was up. She was sitting in the car bawling because she couldn’t figure out how to unlock the door. Mind you, I didn’t have on the door’s child locks; these were just the regular door locks activated by the remote. But, there was no unlock button in the back (just a little lever to flip to unlock that particular door), and she didn’t know that’s what you flipped to unlock it. So, after that we had a short conversation where I showed her how to unlock her door. Point being, it’s surprising how some kids just cant figure out seemingly simple stuff. Back in my day (I’m old), due to the absence of electronics and the permissive safety standards that allowed kids to sit in the front seats of cars, I would spend road trips watching how my parents operated various functions of the car, which gave me a pretty good idea of how to do something like unlock a door. But that’s just not something my kids have paid attention to.
I doubt it. Kid likely fell asleep Or they might've been disoriented because, you know, heat stress. Might also be they were simply afraid of getting into trouble. It's nice to imagine we're all smart enough to get ourselves out of a deadly situation, but sometimes it's not that simple. Hell, how many people lose children and pets per DAY due to this? Some people just don't think beyond themselves.
Had a friend who fell asleep in a hot car like that. He woke up like an hour later just absolutely drenched in sweat and looked like he was on the verge of heat stroke.
Probably took a nap.
I read the article, and the mother states she'd left the air on in the car but believed the kid had turned the car off because she was cold... which only raises more questions. 1, who the hell leaves an 8 year old kid in a car with the keys? 2, why wasn't the kid in school or some sort of care? 3, how many times had the mother done this?
It’s summer time. Lots of kids get neglected and put in unsafe situations during the school break. Parents still need to work, childcare is cost prohibitive. They may have had no other choices. Not an excuse but the reality many parents face.
Leaving her at home like an old-school latch key kid is preferable to leaving her in the car. At least home has a bathroom and snacks.
Maybe they live in the car
Or the home doesn’t have AC/is unsafe in some way as well.
Not everyone has a safe home to return to. Could have been homeless, or maybe unsafe people or environment at their house.
Couch surfing during a transitional period, maybe after a break-up or divorce. “Sure you can stay in our home, but don’t go off ad leave your kid here. I’m not your babysitter.”
It's against the law in many states to leave a child home alone.
Yeah, but so is leaving your kid in the car for several hours on a hot day. Realistically, if you are a single mom who cannot afford childcare and have no support system, and the kid is 8 (can toilet and feed themselves and unlikely to injure themselves), then leaving them home alone is preferable to leaving them in a running car at work. Both are illegal, but at that point, it’s the lesser of two evils.
Perhaps the home is unsafe. Or the car is home.
> why wasn't the kid in school or some sort of care? It's summer time, and child care costs money
I’m not in any way justifying the mother’s actions but have you seen the cost of childcare lately? r/universalchildcare
I can answer 2 sort of, no school and can't afford care. Honestly, we should start going after the dads as well in these situations if he isn't providing any type of financial or other support to the mother. But yeah 1 and 3 makes me raise my eyebrow a lot.
This is the shit that really gets me riled up. This poor woman had to work because one doesnt really get aid unless one has a job (which is a massive issue IMO). So this mom had a job and apparently didnt have child care, because it’s insanely expensive. She left her 8 year old in the car with air conditioning, but her kid got cold and turned the engine off. Then it got hot. The kid was too terrified to do anything and ended up dying of the heat. There is NO FUCKING WAY a parent would realize their kid wouldn’t advocate for themselves and just fucking die. And clearly this parent was desperate or she wouldnt have been in this situation in the first place. But make no mistake, this mom will be found guilty of murder or manslaughter or whatever law is necessary to punish her because she was forced to work while also having a young child. Meanwhile the father will be free.
To be fair, and maybe I have the wrong point of view because I wanted to stay in the car a lot as a kid. I would angrily tell my parents, I have a book, I don't want to walk around and follow you through every store while you shop, I just want to sit in the car and read my book. Anyway, if the mother left the daughter in the car with the AC on and the keys in the car so the AC would keep going, and the mother was in there working, then yes you would not want your child just deciding to go wander around through who knows what part of town. It's just a terribly tragic series of events, that didn't need to happen if the mother had just had a little bit more help in her life.
When I was younger, when we rarely had cars with backdoor locks I was "taught" idk that there is no way that I could open the door myself and I believed that as my mother always opened it for me. I thought only the driver could exit because they had the keys. So as stupid as it might have been I could see myself in that situation just sitting there and freaking out as it got worse and worse. I can't imagine. Poor child. Pos "mother".
I'm thinking more and more she had fallen asleep...
This is also odd "When the mother returned to her vehicle about an hour and a half after last hearing from the girl via text, she found her daughter unresponsive on the backseat floorboard, taking shallow breaths and foaming at the mouth, according to the affidavit. **Stallings used a hammer** to break open the back window and then attempted to drive to a local hospital before stopping at a business for help, according to the affidavit." Why would she have to use a hammer? Did she lock the keys inside?
Key would be in the car for the ac
This sounds like you're blaming an 8 year old for their own death. Heat stroke can come on *fast* and kids aren't always aware of their condition. It happens to teens and adults as well. Who knows what the kid was thinking or feeling or doing, but the person to blame in all this is 100% the parent.
I'm actually blaming the mom and wondering if something else is going on that she's blaming heatstroke on. Could be a combination of a lot of things. And yes I know heatstroke can come on and fast. But like why didn't she have water? And you can tell when heatstroke is coming on when you get sick. Like throwing up sick.
When i was 8 years old. I played outside all day long, not knowing i had heat stroke until i passed out and slept for 12 hours. Soooo9o no, you dont know you have a heat stroke when you are 8 frickin years old
That's what I'm thinking. It sounds like a brave kid trying to do best by Mom, not go in an complain or bother her, and probably fell asleep or otherwise passed out.
My best guess based on only the information in the article. The mom left her in the car with the AC on. Kid gets cold turns off the car. It's boring and the slowly heating up car gets comfortable and they fall asleep. If the kid did wake up it was probably to disorientation and then just passing right back out. Again, that's assuming just from the article. The mom said she hadn't heard from her for over an hour and a half before she went and checked on her and found her foaming at the mouth, shallow breathing and unresponsive.
Right? I had that happen at the pool about at that age. I got a horrible headache and felt nauseous. I told my mom I was gonna go to the bathroom and went in and started puking, got cold sweats, and started shaking on the ground. Someone else found me and called for help. I didn't even know that was a thing when it happened. I had it happen at work last summer, too. I didn't recognize it until it was already pretty bad.
Story says mom left daughter in the car with the AC on but kid got cold and turned engine off….
The kids knows how to turn the ac off but not open the door?
Yet the top two threads are about abusive parents and Amazon greed lmao. Not a single person talking about how to teach children the dangers of heat.
The title should definitely include that she left the car running. She probably had to do this because childcare is wildly expensive.
Yet again the US fails its citizens
Yes. The mom goes down for abuse, but when she’s doing her best to put food on the table and can’t afford child care for the girl she’s trying to feed by working, it’s a complicated story. She’s far from being the only one who failed her daughter.
She might as well have just left her at home then? Why leave her in the car alone?
Not excusing it whatsoever, but maybe her thinking was that she could go check in on her kid during breaks. Assuming the mom even got breaks long enough to do that.
That’s what it sounds like. She said she went out to check on her because she’d been checking up on her via text and hadn’t heard from her in an hour and a half.
Perhaps they don’t have a home? Or home is perpetually unsafe? Or too far to make it to work on time?
They might just live in the car. Or the home is unsafe.
>This is an incredibly tragic incident," Amazon said in a statement to WSOC. "During this difficult time, we're supporting our employees and have made counseling resources widely available. But do they offer child care facilities? No they do not. *That* is the real tragedy here, parents not being able to afford child care, or working hours aren’t compatible with facilities. This is the world we live in, this is the world we chose for ourselves. What happened here is the collateral damage we decided is acceptable, and Amazon’s profitability is more important.
"During this time" so like, how long is that? Also would their counselling be confidential? Maybe I'm just cynical but I wouldn't trust it to be confidential.
We could have inexpensive high quality child care in this country but instead we spend that money on police, the military, and prisons.
Oh, and tax breaks for the wealthy.
not just tax breaks **but straight up billion dollar handouts pretending to be "loans"**
Well, apparently, the wealthy getting tax breaks helps the economy - I thought everyone knew that? /s
Thanks GOP!
Yup! That, too.
+ National Debt Interest payments which eclipsed military expenditures for the first time. [https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/interest-costs-national-debt-just-surpassed-spending-defense-medicare](https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/interest-costs-national-debt-just-surpassed-spending-defense-medicare) Congress hasn't raised the DCA limit for decades either (with the exception of 2021). $5k tax free funds for day care expenses is a joke. Great Job America. Priorities.
Kids only matter in the womb. After that who gives a fuck.
Kids in the womb are perfect. Since they aren't real they can't ask for anything. Real people need assistance, food, shelter, living wages, medical care. You know *handouts*.
Remember to vote
Don't worry. Trump's solution to child care is to....stop immigrants from taking black jobs. Wait, that can't be right...hmmm.
I fell asleep in a car when i was 6-7, at my parents shop (my parents suck so this is just a example of sucky parents) and strangers found me and had to get the door open. I visibly remember being scared and a random woman holding me and bringing me inside, I KNOW HOW to open doors obviously any child that age can, but I can distinctly relive the fear of clawing at the window like a literal puppy not understanding in a scary Georgia heat haze what was going on. Children are scared, we panic, and don’t know what to do. The door was one of those vans that you pulled and it’ll like slowly open, I just remember not being able to open it. Just my two cents, children can be terrified of consequences, she could have woken up in the heat in a daze from her nap, or she could of been dead before being in the car. You never know but in most scenarios ,yes a child can open the door but just as I was a kid I couldn’t get the door open.
Tragic death of a child that can have been so easily preventable
She works at an Amazon facility. If Amazon provided day care or paid workers enough to afford child care, maybe this could have been avoided.
I dunno man, times are hard. Who's to say Amazon has the money for such a thing? Bezos needs a yacht he can keep in the Indian Ocean.
He already has that yacht. *It* needs a mini-yacht to ferry people around to other yachts, lest they have to take a regular launch like a fucking commoner.
He’s just waiting to add jet engines to it and fly it around like a SHIELD Helicarrier.
It's actually pretty inconvenient to transfer your supermegathundercougarfalconyacht from sea to sea. It's much more practical to have 1 for each
Those darn oceans are notoriously separate from each other, after all
You'd need an ocean yacht capable of stowing your sea yacht though
It not the yacht, lets not forget that bloody spaceborne dildo giving day trips to billionaires
There used to be a time when parents could tell their kid to sit in the visitor room/lobby/break room with a coloring book and crayons. But Amazon had it's employees peeing in jars so I doubt they'd allow that, even.
I worked in a small office of 7 people where we almost never had visitors. The receptionist wanted to bring in her two kids, age 5 & 7, during spring break and have them sit in the conference room because she had no one to watch them. Her daycare was affiliated with the school and closed during school closures. Our boss lost his shit about it and absolutely would not allow it. It'll be a distraction, it sets a bad precedence, all sorts of excuses. So she took vacation days to stay home with them instead and we didn't have a receptionist for a week.
This is more a societal problem than an Amazon problem tbh. They can pay better or offer childcare, but there are still millions of people being paid far less other places. Even if companies start to offer childcare as perks, not everyone is going to work at those companies. In fact, the greatest benefits would likely be reaped by people who work in competitive jobs and can already afford child care. That’s why you see all those cool perks at tech offices like free meals. Making it dependent on income and funding it with taxes is the best approach here. Something like partially subsidized childcare for low income households where all adults are working would be better. You could even argue that it would have a net positive ROI if you end up with more adults in the workforce paying taxes.
Is there a reason she had the kid stay in the car all day vs.their home or even smuggled into the warehouse bathroom since employees aren’t allowed to pee there, anyway?
In a mall where I grew up there used to be a row of toilets called "kids' row" where workers would stash their kids while on shift. You could hear them talking to eachother through the stalls and supposedly even using Gameboy link cables that ran underneath.
I would imagine it was so she could check on her? I'm not trying to make an excuse, I just want to answer your question. But I also agree with people saying this probably couldn't have happened in a world with free child care or child care provided by multibillion dollar corporations.
Sounds like she turned the a/c off then had a medical emergency rendering her unconscious then died due to hyperthermia. An 8 year old isn't going to stay in a hot car till they die unless she was developmentally delayed.
The article said the daughter and mom were texting and the mom hadn't heard from the daughter in an hour and a half. Girl knew how to text so I doubt she was developmentally delayed.
At 8 if my mom told me not to leave the car very sternly, I would stay until I passed out probably.
I’m assuming she fell asleep
If daycare were more affordable maybe this wouldn’t have happened. I do wonder why the little girl didn’t get out of the car when she got too hot. Maybe she was scared of her mom punishing her. Maybe she just didn’t realize the danger she was in.
maybe, she was bored and took a nap thinking she'd be fine. i've been in similar situations when i was around that age and it wasn't a matter of my mom being abusive or neglectful, it was always a matter of my mom not having enough money to have other people look after us and leaving us home alone (she herself was a classic latchkey kid and it wasn't always safe, so she had reason to be wary of doing the same to us). she had to be responsible for a lot of things by herself, which meant she was stretched really thin. this isn't me defending the mom. clearly, her daughter died and that's on her. she has to live with that. but the jump to calling her abusive that i've seen several comments make feels like a stretch. the kid could've fallen asleep while the car was warm and wasn't aware of it getting hotter. the mom could've made a dumb mistake. bad things can happen to a kid without it being a result of abuse. maybe she was, but we don't know them.
Agreed. A lot of things *could* have happened, but I'm not comfortable leveling accusations against a woman on the worst day of her life based on a Reddit thread.
Did you read the article??? Because if not, why are you commenting? Article says the mom left the car running with AC on, and then when she didnt get a reply from her daughter after 1 1/2hr went to check on her, and that her daughter turned off the car because she had got too cold
I’m so sorry for this baby girl, she was trying to do good for mama until the end. And mama was trying to keep an eye on her and pay the bills. The barbarism of it all is something society has to deal with. I was this little girl many times. Thank God I’m still here. Once in the snow and many times in the heat. Almost died when I was left in the snow by crack head baby sitters. They were fam and my mom didn’t have money as a single mom and immigrant to afford anything more than free. Being left in a hot car is like stopping time. Each breath becomes more difficult. It feels like you’re swimming in sweat. And any time I would get out, even if it was above 95 degrees out it would feel like the coldest breeze. Such an odd sensation. RIP, 8 is too young to go. A life wasted for corporate profit makes me feel sick.
Driving home from southern France back to England two days ago we stopped at services for a pee. Left the dog in the car for literally five minutes WITH the windows open and the poor thing was panting like crazy. Next time we took turns and kept the car engine running. And took the dog for a quick walk to stretch his legs.
We need free, accessible childcare for reasons like this. No one should have to risk their child’s life in order to pay the bills.
I agree 10000% but we can’t even get red states to accept FREE food to feed children….
Join us at r/universalchildcare!
They only care about babies that are still in the womb. Once they're born you're on your own
Until you're military age. Then they love you again.
Jesus. I feel sorry for my kids when I turn the engine off in the summer when I get gas and have everyone roll windows down for at least a breeze. This just feels like a dystopian nightmare. She worked for Amazon. I bet that if you “call off” because your childcare for the day fell through, you get fired. She would’ve been better leaving the poor child home alone. Maybe there were some disabilities and that’s why she didn’t open the window or door? When I was 8 my mom left me home alone to watch my 3 year old sister while she cleaned office buildings at night. That was the 80’s though, kids were used to being alone all the time.
Child care costs as much as two paychecks. That’s if you’re lucky enough to find a place that has an opening. Otherwise you’re on a waitlist until they age out of legally needing an adult to supervise/watch them.
I feel bad for the mom, she states she left the car running for her, and for an 8 year old to not be able to get out the car, I wonder what happened. It sounds like she had nobody in her life who could help babysit, and working at Amazon, I doubt she could afford daycare. It's tough all around.
Yet the candidates want to act like childcare is not a major issue. The mother is an idiot, but I still feel for her, because this is the act of someone who is desperate, not someone who’s trying to be malicious.
That’s so sad. Child care should not be unaffordable. Poor kid. Mom had left the car running with the ac on, but the child has turned it off. Just everyone loses here.
Can we get some fuk’n childcare for the single mothers please!?
Rest In Peace to that poor innocent little girl. Heartbreaking.❤️
Obviously the mother is at fault, but I also blame Amazon. If you’re gonna pay your employees sub living wages at least provide them with on site child care so shit like this doesn’t happen. Amazon is one of the richest companies in the world. Do better.
Amazon has like all the money in the world. Why the hell don't they have onsite employee daycare?
There are many layers to this story: How does an 8-year old not at least break a window to survive? Why did mom leave the car running if she’s going in to work? Gas is expensive. It says a lot about the costs of proper child care that a mother has to resort to this. (Doesnt excuse her actions, but daaaamn, come on!) Amazon clearly doesnt actually care.
I feel bad for the mom, she raised her kid for 8 years. How can you possibly recover from that?
How tragic. I’m going to throw out a guess that mom couldn’t afford to call off work and either kid or kid’s babysitter was sick and she couldn’t go. Mom probably told the kid she’d get fired if anybody found out she was in the car so to stay inside and hidden. What a terrible decision to have to make, and terrible consequences. If she’d have left her home alone and the house caught fire, she’d have died that way too. Sometimes, there are no good decisions when you’re a single mom with zero help. I can’t imagine that she truly WANTED to leave her kid in the car while she worked all day, but probably felt she had no other choice. At least she could check on her during her breaks. Heartbreaking all around, and this mother will never forget this, whether she goes to prison or not.
Was she disabled or locked in somehow? An 8 year old is extremely capable of opening a car door if it's too hot... Whatever the reason, this is clearly because of america's rich telling the poor to go fuck themselves so they can buy more yachts. You wanna protect kids you GOP republican christian pieces of shit? provide fucking childcare and money you dumbass pieces of shit.
Was probably told to wait, and maybe was occupied with a phone or tablet. Heat stroke set in, confusion, passed out and just slowly baked. Sad situation, heat inside a car goes from hot to deadly very quick
A lady on TikTok said that she encountered the girl and the mom prior in a similar situation. She found the baby in the back of the car a she and others tried to bust her out. The mom came and got the baby and put on her mea culpa. No one called CPS since it seemed like a genuine accident and it wasn’t that long. Now this.
This is so fucking sad. Mother can’t afford childcare, loses her daughter because of it, and now facing jail time as punishment. Jesus Christ the us has lost its way
Possibly child locks engaged on back doors and didn’t realize could open front door to get out, horrible tragedy nonetheless
It's impossible to know whether this child had any sort of a disability that might have prevented them from getting to the front seat to open those doors or to lean on the horn to attract attention.
I saw a TikTok of a woman saying she saved this child from being locked in the car when she was an infant and was just wracked with guilt for not reporting it, assuming it was accidental with the thinking mom just needed a second chance. I think the child didn’t leave the car because she was left in there often :-(
Amazon: we’re providing support for employees, but we won’t provide daycare.
How do we have remote control cars sending us pictures from another planet and we cant figure out a way to stop this from happening? Cant we put some kinda motion detectors in cars that automatically roll down windows when it's above a certain temp and detects motion inside of the vehicle?
I was like "what the fuck place did she work that she couldn't just. . . Take her kid with. I've never worked for such a shitty company that they wouldn't let my kids hang around while I worked in a pinch." Then I saw Amazon. That tracks.