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A tragedy in Marple, and some lingering doubts
The first question in light of the tragedy that unfolded yesterday in Marple Township is the obvious one. How could this possibly happen?
It’s the one I’ve been asking myself since we first got word of a child found locked in a steaming car Tuesday afternoon.
You think about how hot it was, how uncomfortable we were as we zipped from one air-conditioned environment to another, how we wondered just how long this intense early-season heat wave was going to last, and then you hear something that almost defies belief.
The truth is we just don’t know. But more than that is the belief that, even though many of us likely would deny it, it could probably happen to any of us.
Like anyone else, I spent much of yesterday afternoon wondering exactly how you manage to forget that you have a child in the back seat of your car. Then I remember some of the things I have done, some of the things I have forgotten, how fast we all live our lives, rushing from one place to another, and I wonder if, in another circumstance that could be me. I like to believe it would not. The ugly truth is there’s a little nagging doubt there.
It appears what happened was simply a horrific accident. A man picked up his grandchild as he often did. He would then drop him off at day care on his way to work. That didn’t happen yesterday. Instead the man apparently forgot his precious cargo, went to work, closed the car door behind him that morning and went inside.
It was only when he returned to his car shortly after lunch that he discovered to his horror the 14-month-old was still inside the sweltering vehicle. Police believe the temperature inside the car likely approached 120 degrees on Day 4 of our sizzling late spring heat wave. Yesterday’s temperature of 98 degrees set a record. The child was in the car for five hours. He was rushed to Bryn Mawr Hospital and later to Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia. His condition has not been disclosed.
Who knows exactly what happened, if there was some kind of a change in the routine, if something happened to scramble the man’s thought process, what other issues he was dealing with, that clearly his mind simply was elsewhere. Or maybe for some reason he just didn’t realize the child was still in the back seat.
Our first reaction is to wonder how this could have possibly happened, to assure ourselves that this could not happen to us.
And then we’re left to wonder if that’s really the case.
It’s the one I’ve been asking myself since we first got word of a child found locked in a steaming car Tuesday afternoon.
You think about how hot it was, how uncomfortable we were as we zipped from one air-conditioned environment to another, how we wondered just how long this intense early-season heat wave was going to last, and then you hear something that almost defies belief.
The truth is we just don’t know. But more than that is the belief that, even though many of us likely would deny it, it could probably happen to any of us.
Like anyone else, I spent much of yesterday afternoon wondering exactly how you manage to forget that you have a child in the back seat of your car. Then I remember some of the things I have done, some of the things I have forgotten, how fast we all live our lives, rushing from one place to another, and I wonder if, in another circumstance that could be me. I like to believe it would not. The ugly truth is there’s a little nagging doubt there.
It appears what happened was simply a horrific accident. A man picked up his grandchild as he often did. He would then drop him off at day care on his way to work. That didn’t happen yesterday. Instead the man apparently forgot his precious cargo, went to work, closed the car door behind him that morning and went inside.
It was only when he returned to his car shortly after lunch that he discovered to his horror the 14-month-old was still inside the sweltering vehicle. Police believe the temperature inside the car likely approached 120 degrees on Day 4 of our sizzling late spring heat wave. Yesterday’s temperature of 98 degrees set a record. The child was in the car for five hours. He was rushed to Bryn Mawr Hospital and later to Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia. His condition has not been disclosed.
Who knows exactly what happened, if there was some kind of a change in the routine, if something happened to scramble the man’s thought process, what other issues he was dealing with, that clearly his mind simply was elsewhere. Or maybe for some reason he just didn’t realize the child was still in the back seat.
Our first reaction is to wonder how this could have possibly happened, to assure ourselves that this could not happen to us.
And then we’re left to wonder if that’s really the case.
posted by Heron's Nest at
7:54 AM
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