http://www.wltx.com/news/story.aspx?storyid=49250

Baby Left In 137 Degrees Hot Car Dies

Mom Being Escorted By Police After Leaving Baby In Car

Detectives Used Thermal Imaging To Get Car Temperature

(Chattanooga) - Every time the weather gets hot, we hear the same story. A baby left alone in a car.

“It makes me wanna cry. It’s so sad. How could they not know their child was in the car?” says Gina Genette, a concerned mother.

That story has a sad ending. Parents left a 15-month-old child in the back seat of a BMW for hours. Someone discovered the baby and called 911. By the time police arrived at the parking lot, the baby was dead.

Detective Toby Hewitt of the Chattanooga Police Department says, “clearly children and people of all ages need to be mindful of the heat. Especially in vehicles and confined spaces.”

“They should have known that child was in the car. Left out all day in the car, that is crazy,” says Gennette.

EMS workers escort a visibly shaken mother out of the building. Detectives on the scene used thermal imaging inside the car. The temperature reached 137 degrees.

Gennette says “no sympathy at all…none…for the child yes but for the parents, none.”

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Astounds me every time. I have, on rare occasion, left a sleeping 4 or 5 year old in an off, locked vehicle, emergency brake on, no keys, parked right up against the front door of a gas station, to dash in for a gallon of milk -- and been conflicted and half-panicked the entire time, not looking at the clerk, bumping into people because of looking at the car instead of where I was going.

How in the Hell...?

Did I ever tell y'all about walking out of my store last year, heading to the bank (I walk -- it's about a block), and finding a little boy sitting ON TOP of the ROOF of a SUBURBAN, kicking his little legs and having the time of his life. Couldn't have been more than 4 years old. His mother had left him and his older sister (maybe 7) in the vehicle with all the windows down, and he had climbed up onto the roof. Not the hood. The ROOF. That's a 7 foot drop!

I glared at him in my best you're in big trouble now mister' mom-face, and he scurried back inside the truck, then I started looking for his mother. She wasn't in the store her vehicle was in front of, nor was she in the two stores on either side of her car. I looked for this woman for probably 5-10 minutes before she sashayed out of a store way down in the center and back to the truck. And you betcha I walked right up to her and told her -- but she was obviously clueless. He was crying harder after I glared at him than he did when she got back. I mean, I know this is Alamo Heights (lots of old money, city-within-a-city), but COME ON!

Ok, venting finished. Ugh.

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That's terrible.

PEOPLE!

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When I was little my mom left me and my sister in the car to go into the store for something. We were 3 & 5. She left it running. The old 2 door malibu jumped out of gear (no emerg. brake on!) and in started rolling backwards toward the 4 lane street of traffic. My sis panicked and swung open the heavy door and instructed me to jump with her. We could have easily been run over by the car. It turned as it went back and hit a building with the rear end.

Just yesterday my dh got out of the car to run into the store with baby and me in the back and I made him turn off the car. I still won't stay in a running car unless I am behind the wheel.

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Some lady ran up onto the sidewalk/breezeway in the shopping center our store is in an hour or two ago. There are posts, gazebos, planters and curb stops everywhere. She was all the way up on it and turned sideways! We heard *burn rubber* *bump* *burn rubber* *bump* *burn rubber*, then went outside to see what was up. I don't think anyone got hurt, but the car was basically in the gazebo three feet in front of Baskin Robbins, where there are little kids eating ice cream and playing all the time.

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LOL! Did she start happy hour early Steph?

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I bet it was another elderly person that hit the gas instead of the brake.

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My step-grandpa ran into my sisters car that way. He felt aweful. My MOM is driving them up tomorrow.

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We have a lot of older people around this area. It's, like I said, a very money-ed part of town, old money, almost completely self-contained to the point where it's referred to "the bubble", and "09-ers" (the zip code is 78209) don't like to go "outside the bubble". "The bubble" has about a three mile radius. So, it is very possible an older person. This happens every 1-2 years. Someone went through the wall of the drug store down the way years ago...

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