10-Month-Old Baby Dies After Dad Forgets Her In Car For 7 Hours

The father of a 10-month-old baby girl accidentally left her in the car seat for around seven hours, which led to her unfortunate death. The incident happened in Portugal, where the temperature of the area was about 26 degrees Celsius, which means it could have been doubled inside the locked car.

According to media reports, the man was supposed to drop off his daughter at the nursery before going to work. However, he happened to have gone to the office directly, somehow forgetting about his daughter and leaving her behind in the car.

Father Forgets Baby In The Car

The father, who works as a lecturer, parked his car close to the NOVA University campus creche on Tuesday, after which he went to his office at the university, accidentally forgetting his child in the car.

Upon returning, he was shocked to see his unconscious daughter in the back seat of the car. As per authorities, he immediately called the emergency services, who tried their best to revive the baby but pronounced her dead at the scene.

The baby’s mother, who rushed to the hospital on hearing the unfortunate incident, was provided with psychological support.

Authorities claimed that the baby girl was asleep, and her father simply forgot that she was in the car. The autopsy results have not been released as of now and are not expected to be made public.

Can this really happen? Can parents really forget the presence of their children and go on about their daily lives for hours? In a shocking revelation, yes, it can happen, and this is certainly not the first incident either. This whole forgetting of your baby is a peculiar condition.

Forgotten Baby Syndrome

"Forgotten Baby Syndrome" is when parents accidentally leave a baby or young child in a locked car, which often leads to tragic results. It’s a medical explanation that describes how a parent can walk away from the car, completely forgetting that their child is in the backseat. This occurs when the parents focus more on future tasks than being emotionally present at the moment.

There is no character profile of the parent, and any parent can be affected by this condition regardless of their age, race, gender, income, education level, personality, temperament, etc. It mostly happens when the parent is absent-minded or has a sudden change of routine.

Statistics And Solution

Hot car deaths occur when parents leave their children locked in the backseat of the car, most often accidentally, and forget about them for a very long time. A study between 1990 and 2020 showed that 56% of hot car deaths happen when parents forget their child inside the car. The study also revealed that in 27% of the cases, the children got into the car without the parent’s knowledge, 14% were left inside knowingly, and 3% of the circumstances remained unknown.

The best way to avoid children getting inside the car without their parents’ knowledge is to keep the car keys out of the children’s reach. In 2021, the Federal Commission granted a waiver allowing manufacturers to install a radar-based technology that detects and alerts to the presence of a child inside a locked car. Hopefully, technology should aid in preventing these unfortunate deaths from happening.

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