Good samaritan rescues children locked in hot car

[mnhtnbb]

Thank goodness this woman got involved! You can play the 911 call through a link in the story. The woman who got involved was horrified to discover that there was not just one, but two, locked
in the car after one child was persuaded to unlock the car.

Don't be afraid to step up and call the police if you see a child, or a pet, locked in a hot car.



GASTONIA, N.C. -- Gastonia Police were called to the Target on South New Hope Road on Sunday on a report that two small children were locked inside a hot car with no air conditioning and only the windows cracked.

Saturday's temperatures were in the 90s with humidity that made it feel like 100 degrees.

911 call

Click here to listen to the 911 call.

"They were very hot, soaked with sweat,” said Gastonia Police Department Sgt. Mike Lari. “It just blows our mind that people can do that, leave their children out in the heat like that."

http://charlotte.news14.com/content/top_stories/627307/gastonia-mother-charged-for-leaving-kids-in-hot-car

[hobbit709]

1. some people really shouldn't have kids.

[Liberal_in_LA]

11. +1

[Bitwit1234]

2. A woman where I used to work rescued a dog from a car he

had passed out. She dipped him under water and revived him. State troopers were on the scene and issued a ticket for animal abuse. The guy was crying when he thought his dog wouldn't be revived and said he didn't know how quick it could happen.

[TexasObserver]

3. If you need to break a car window, use a pointed object.

The window glass in a car is built under pressure. It is designed to shatter on impact, but it is virtually impossible to do with a regular shoe. If you have a high heel, however, you can pick it up, and hit the glass straight on with the heel. You'll need to hold the shoe like an ice pick and drive the hard tip of the high heel into the glass at a right angle.

If you have a pebble imbedded in the heel of your regular shoe, you might be able to use it like the heel.

A hammer or a screw driver will work, too. Hands or feet in most shoes will not do it, however.

If you have a pocket knife, hold it closed in your hand, with a thumb over one end, and drive the rounded part of the metal on the other end into the glass at a right angle. Its rounded "point" might be sufficient.

This is important if you're breaking a window to get someone or some animal out of the car, or if you're in the car and trying to get out. Look for a pointed tip to smash the window glass. You need a lot of foot pounds behind a small point.



The child or person inside the car may not always be able to unlock the door, as in the story told in the article. If so, you have to break the glass to get them out. If they're already overheated or otherwise trapped, don't wait for help. Break the glass and get them out. Do what you have to do to break the glass if a pet or child is locked in and needs out.

[babylonsister]

5. I think everyone should break some glass just on general

principle; leaving kids in a car is so ignorant. Every summer we hear stories about roasted children and pets. Makes you wonder where their brains are.

[TexasObserver]

7. at least once a year, a baby gets roasted in Houston

[babylonsister]

23. I lived in Houston for years; I remember, every summer, some

nitwit would broil their baby.

[hfojvt]

22. I saw the opposite

my dogs were in the car with the windows cracked at least an inch and they had a water dish and a shield to block the front window. It was sunny, but also it was late February and the high was gonna be less than 50. Some busybody called the cops and the cops gave me some stupid lecture and disrupted my day. When I got back to my car, my dogs were sleeping peacefully and not even panting. Sometimes other people know what they are doing even when we do not approve.

[Maru Kitteh]

28. Right! Next time *I* see a baby or a dog locked in a car I'm going walk on by!

Hell, I may even laugh in that baby's or that dog's face! Silly baby! Silly dog! You should have had better parents or an owner that wasn't a complete dipshit.

Yesterday I would have tried to help you out but then I read this post about how hfojvt was slightly inconvenienced once. The outrage! He said: "Sometimes other people know what they are doing even when we do not approve" and it changed my life forever.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

6. well said.

we've had 90s in Chicago. The idea of a kid being locked inside a car is horrifying. Courts have taken parental rights away for this kind of crap.

Children's services should be notified. That parent needs a whole bunch of education.

[TexasObserver]

8. I want to see cars built with a fan that automatically kicks on at 85 Degrees F.

The small exhaust fan would be powered by a solar cell, so it would never be without power. The outflow of air would stop the deadly accumulation of hot air in the vehicle and would help keep the temperature down to a survivable level.

The thermostat that ran it would automatically turn the fan on when the temperature got to 85 degrees F.

This simple device (which I've only imagined) would save lives and injury to trapped and overheated children and pets.

[hvn_nbr_2]

16. I've actually seen ads for such a device

It's been quite awhile since I saw that so I suspect that it may not have worked as a profitable product. They were advertising it to make your car less overheated when you return to it, not as a safety device.

[TexasObserver]

25. I'd like to see it built into cars, as a mandated safety feature.

[hedgehog]

29. Hell, install it as a comfort device for people who have to park their

cars in the sun all day!

[mnhtnbb]

18. The parent has been charged with misdemeanor child abuse.

Misdemeanor? We need to change the law.

[Nye Bevan]

12. I would be terrified of causing a shard of broken glass to impale the child

Hopefully I will never be in that situation.

[hobbit709]

14. Car safety glass doesn't break like that.

It's made that way on purpose. Otherwise people would get impaled in every fender bender.

[TexasObserver]

15. It is safety glass, designed to shatter on impact into small chunks.

Obviously, you do it on the window furthest from the kid, preferably the other side, in the front.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

17. no worries. Won't happen.

You realize that GM spent close to a million dollars fighting against safety glass, even more against seatbelts, and far more against collapsible steering columns? Those three things eventually saved billions, even trillions in lower injury rates and far higher survivability after a collision.

In old medical texts, they taught how to treat car accident victims. If it was the driver, you could pretty much guarantee serious chest injuries that could turn fatal.

[Donnachaidh]

4. hell, it was so hot on Saturday I wouldn't GO OUT in the car

And to take little kids out and leave them in the car? Holy Hopping frogs -- WTF is WRONG with these people?

[sufrommich]

9. What the hell is wrong with people?? Stupid should not breed.

I hope the kids were taken away from their moron parents, good for the woman who rescued them.

[Jamastiene]

10. Let me guess. In Gastonia,

the parents were most likely either playing video poker, cozying up to their child molesting preacher, or shooting something with their guns (Locals around here don't call it Gunstonia for nothing.)

Gastonia is one of the worst, and I mean ABSOLUTE WORST places in this entire state for children. If they aren't being molested by preachers and teachers there, they are getting shot or left in the car to die while mommy and/or daddy sit inside an air conditioned convenience store playing video poker.

[mnhtnbb]

20. She was shopping at Target.

[Jamastiene]

24. I'm sorry. I was trying to guess.

We have News14 on our local cable. I check News14 for weather because they actually include my little town unlike many other local stations. I was trying to guess beforehand, because I will definitely see this story on their rotation a zillion times. I wasn't clear in my post what I was trying to do. :)

Yes, shopping at Target is different from most of what we see here. Most of what we see are people leaving their kids in the car to suffer and often times die while they play video poker. It's incredibly sad.

[dflprincess]

13. Regardless of the weather

why would anyone leave kids alone in a car? If they're too young to wait in the car with the windows down they're too young to be left alone at all.

[hedgehog]

30. It was common when I was a kid 50 years ago. It's only been in recent

years that people have become so worried about kidnapping. This is aside from any hazard of overheatig.

[dixiegrrrrl]

19. I would have NO problem smashing a window to get to those kids.

Then I would insist on charges being pressed on the parent and cheerfully testify against them.
Plus I would have grabbed anyone in the area to be a witness and to help me.
Seconds count in that kind of situation.
Down here, I don't even get IN my car after 10 am. It is over 90 degrees by then.

Man, that makes my blood boil.

I read yesterday about some guy who set his infant down on the top of a hot car.
Kid got 2nd degree burns on his legs and arms.

Grrrrrrrrrr.

[mnhtnbb]

21. I listened to the 911 call. The woman was very afraid the parent(s)

would come out and think she was trying to kidnap the kids. After she got the kids out of the car,
the 911 dispatcher advised the woman to put them in her car and turn on the a/c--which she did.
The police arrived before the parent came out.

Can you imagine what could happen if the parent had come out and been carrying a gun?
There was an article in our Raleigh paper today about North Carolina
being an "open carry" state--and what great rankings it has from all the gun nuts.

[adamuu]

27. lucky she was female. n/t

[Berry Cool]

26. I predicted last week that we would soon hear of a case of this.

Luckily, these kids made it.

But sure enough, the person responsible (mother in this case) gave the classic excuse: "But I was only running into the store for a few minutes."

That's what they all say.

The mother planned to spend 10 minutes in the store. Even that might have been too many. She ended up spending 30 minutes.

That is NOT "running into the store for a few minutes."

In almost every case, people who plan to "only run into the store for a few minutes" take way longer. Whether because they are distracted or because they are delayed.

In any case, it doesn't take more than "a few minutes" for a car to turn into an oven in the heat.

No one should ever leave kids or pets in a car, even with the windows cracked, on a hot day while "running into the store for a few minutes."

[Bettie]

31. There is NO excuse for behavior like this

Stuff like this makes me so angry...I know too many parents who have lost their beloved children to be patient with people who allow their kids to die or be injured through carelessness.

Really, it is common sense and last time I checked, they allow children in Target stores, in fact, they even have these carts that you can put them in to tote them around the store with you!

Some people are just too dumb to be parents.

The sad fact is that this mother will probably do this again too. She probably does it all the time, because she doesn't want to be bothered with getting them in and out of the car all the time.

Poor kids.

[guitar man]

32. I would have kicked the damn window out

and gotten those kids out. There is no excuse for this shit....none! :grr:

[woo me with science]

33. Time to repost Gene Weingarten's Pulitzer article on parents who killed

their children accidentally by doing this. It is not a simplistic treatment, and not easy to read:

http://www.pulitzer.org/works/2010-Feature-Writing

[mnhtnbb]

34. Except this was not an accident. The woman deliberately left her children in a hot, locked car.