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In reply to the discussion: Baby died after mom left in SUV while at work [View all]CBHagman
(16,980 posts)Here's his own experience in this matter:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/another-child-dies-in-a-hot-car-and-gene-weingarten-asks-why-was-this-a-crime/2012/03/14/gIQAXm01ES_story.html
Murder is an unforgiving term for what nearly happened that day, but to prosecutors in Prince William County, it is appropriate. That was the charge they brought last year against Bristow veterinarian Karen Murphy, whose 2-year-old, Ryan, did not do what my 2-year-old, Molly, did on the day I almost killed her: wake up at the last minute and say something.
So I didnt park and lock my car and head into my office that morning, as Murphy did last June 17. Instead, after steadying my nerves against the knowledge of what Id almost done, I drove my daughter to day care, as Id meant to do before I somehow inexplicably, inexcusably forgot that she was sitting in the back seat.
(SNIP)
You see my bias in this matter. I make no excuses for it. I have the facts, just as you do; the main difference is that, probably unlike you, I understand on an uncomfortably personal level that this unthinkable, impossible horror could befall anyone.
I feel no sense of superiority to any of those parents whose children did not happen to wake up and say something. I am alert to the ironies of life and death. I recognize that it is simply a matter of chance that Molly is not a pile of small bones in the dirt in Florida, but alive and working today in a clinic a few miles away from me, as a veterinarian.