These are dramas that can occur in all families. A two-year-old boy was found dead on Thursday, June 26 in a car parked at the Istres Air Base (Bouches-Du-Rhône), where his father had forgotten, we learned from the accusation of Aix-en-Provence.
The father parked in the morning in the parking lot of his workplace and in the middle of the afternoon, his wife called him and pointed out that his son was not in the nursery, according to the Prosecutor’s Office.
“He realized that when he had forgotten, he hastened his vehicle and found his inanimate son,” said Aix-en-Provence prosecutor Jean-Luc Blachon.
Despite attempts to revive him, the child died. Emergency services “only noticed that the child presented the stigma of dehydration that, according to the first conclusions of the autopsy, is the origin of death,” added the prosecutor.
The father was put in police custody by involuntary homicide. This type of accident, in which there are no official figures, occurs several times a year: last Friday, he is a son of just over a year who was hospitalized in serious condition after being left in a car parked in the sun in Ussel (Corrèze).
Particularly vulnerable babies
Leaving a small child alone can become dangerous quickly: according to the Interior Ministry, “temperatures inside a vehicle can increase excessively quickly.” “Although an external temperature can be considered temperate, of the order of 15 to 20 ° C, it can rise up to 45 ° C in less than half an hour in a car,” warns the ministry in place. And to add that “with an exterior temperature of 26 ° C, ten minutes are enough to cause the death of a small child in a car.”
These dramatic consequences are explained by the great vulnerability of babies to heat blows. As explained by the site of the Ministry of Health, “the baby’s body is rich in water; its fragility is, therefore, maximum” when it is dehydrated, which can kill it.
“Forgotten baby syndrome”
In 2009, the consumer security committee, an independent French administrative authority since he abolished, had Posted an opinion In “forgotten baby syndrome”, an expression from the United States. It is “characterized by the almost always identical scenario of the parents who, when going to their work, forgets to deposit your child in their babysitter or in the nursery.”
But how can we explain that every year, parents completely hide the presence of their child in their car when leaving it? This “forgotten baby syndrome” was examined by David Diamond, a professor of psychology at the University of Florida del Sur, in a study published in 2019. According to him, when a person “enters ‘automatic pilot’, habitual behavior, as preparing. For work and going directly to the office a normal day, you can lead a father to lose consciousness of the child in the car, “said a college statement.
A phenomenon favored by stress and fatigue
So it is a “failure of prospective memory”, which reminds us of what we have to do in the future. “We tend to say ‘I would not happen to me this kind of thing’, or it can happen to everyone because at that time, the father is in a state of hypnosis, an automatic statement where the unconscious is what takes control, and that is why he does not realize”, ” Explained in 2022 in BFMTV ILANA WASERSCZTAJNClinical psychologist
Certain factors promote this failure, according to David Diamond, such as stress, lack of sleep or a phone call that diverts attention. “The absence of visual or verbal reminders, such as a sleeping child or a changing bag,” increases the risk of “losing the child’s awareness in the rear of a car,” added the press release of the University of Southern Florida.
“We spent our time running, we don’t take the time to breathe, to stop,” said Ilana Waserscztajn in 2022.
To help parents, David Diamond begs the implementation of “Integrated Systems to detect a child forgotten by Auto”. There are already some devices, such as the WAZE navigation assistance application that offers to activate a “Child Reminder” option.
Source: BFM TV
