One tragedy turned into two for a Nevada family on Friday. The father was backing his SUV out of his driveway when his little boy ran out and was hit.
The toddler was transported to a local hospital, where he later died. But the distraught father stayed behind in the driveway of his Reno, Nev., home — and stabbed himself in the chest. The father was listed in stable condition over the weekend, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported. Police did not release the names of anyone in the case.
Parents, be suspicious if your teen is suddenly really, really nice to you after a fight over curfew. A 15-year-old Montana girl made Jell-O for her father after an argument with him. Inside the treat: lamp oil. For three days, the girl tried to get her father to eat it, but he didn’t bite.
On Monday, the girl pleaded guilty to simple assault for the attempted poisoning in June, the Associated Press reported. A judge put her on probation until she turns 18. When the girl was asked by the judge what she thought was going to happen if her dad ate the Jell-O, she answered: “That he’d have diarrhea and stuff.”
A spokeswoman for a poison control center in Montana says that ingested lamp oil wouldn’t cause that many problems. However, breathing it could cause inflammation in the lungs.
A Texas father says he “just totally forgot” to drop off his toddler son at daycare and instead left him in a hot car while he spent the day at work.
Kesen Hu, 34, went to his job at PayPal in the Austin, Tex., area at 9:20 a.m. last Wednesday, and seven hours later, returned to the car, where he found his son dead. Eighteen-month-old Daniel had died of hyperthermia, police said.
Now authorities are arguing over whether Hu should be charged. Police told the Austin-American Statesman that the investigation had not been finished, but that the district attorney wanted to quick action. Hu has now been charged with felony child endangerment. District Attorney John Bradley said that he wanted to send a message about child safety.
So far this year, 28 kids have died from heat stroke or hyperthermia after being left in hot cars.
With father’s day coming up, here’s some powerful new research about the importance of dad’s involvement in their kids lives.
Teens whose dads are more involved are less likely to engage in risky sexual behaviors. And while a mom’s influence can help stave off unprotected sex too, a dad’s devotion has twice the effect, according to a new study by researchers at Boston College.
“Maybe there’s something different about the way fathers and adolescents interact,” the study’s lead author Rebekah Levine Coley told MSNBC. “It could be because it’s less expected for fathers to be so involved, so it packs more punch when they are.”
The researchers surveyd 3,206 teens, ages 13 to 18, who all came from two-parent homes. They were asked both about their sexual behaviors and about their relationships with their parents, including how much each parent knows about how they spend their time when they’re not home, and how much time they spent with each parent on activites like eating or playing games.
The impact of family time overall was especially notable. One additional family activity per week predicted a 9 percent drop in sexual activity.
Photo by Mike Baird
A Georgia man apparently tattooed “DB” onto his three-year-old son. The initials stood for “Daddy’s Boy.”
Mom was not amused. After she discovered the branding, she contacted social services, which then alerted the Floyd County police, according to WSB Radio News. It wasn’t reported where on the boy’s body the tattoo was located. Gene Ashley, 24, was recently charged with child cruelty and tattooing a minor. He is no longer allowed to see the child.
The kid didn’t have time for her careful, by-the-rules driving dad. Blue-eyed Leighton Schmidt was born on the seat of the car as her father circled the hospital parking lot, looking for the correct emergency room entrance.
Leighton arrived less than two hours after her mother woke up in her Buffalo, N.Y., area home with contractions. The father, Michael, didn’t think that his daughter would arrive that fast, so he didn’t exactly hot-foot it to the hospital, the Buffalo News reported this week.
“He was stopping at red lights, and I was saying, ‘Don’t stop, don’t stop.’ He said it wasn’t worth a ticket,” said mom Julie Schmidt. After the baby was born, the panicked dad didn’t let himself look, but focused on parking the car and running in to get help.
Mother and child were reported to be healthy and have since been released from the hospital.
Dena Christofferson sure had a lot to say. In one month, the 13-year-old Cheyenne, Colo., girl sent 10,000 text messages and received about the same number. Her family’s phone plan didn’t include texting so Verizon charged them for every “LOL,” “cul8r” and other messages. The damage: $4,756.25.
Gregg Christofferson wanted to make sure it wouldn’t happen again, so he smashed Dena’s phone with a hammer. Naturally, she was also grounded for the rest of the school year.
Dena sent most of the messages during school, and her grades reflect that – she went from A’s and B’s to F’s, her parents told KUSA TV News. Mom and dad also are asking officials at Johnson Junior High to crack down on other kids. Maybe they’ll have to go back to passing notes.
There was no way the midwife could come: The Red River in Minnesota was rising, and roads were flooded. So Jordan Peck turned to Google as his wife went into labor.
It wasn’t detailed what Web sites the search engine lead Peck to, but they must have been useful enough. Natalie Peck gave birth on Sunday to a healthy baby girl named Margaret, KSTP TV News reported. “This was one of those times I was going to follow the directions to a T,” said Jordan Peck, of Hendrum, Minn.
Was he that desperate to be known as the cool dad?
Police say that Steven Russo, of Bethlehem, Pa., held a drinking party for teenagers where the featured attraction was a high school cheerleader dancing on a stripper pole. Russo, 36, has been charged with endangering the welfare of children and selling or furnishing alcohol to minors. He was arraigned on Friday.
Authorities might have never found out about the Dec. 12 party if it had not been for some infighting among members of the Freedom High School cheerleading squad, the Express-Times reported. Photos of the party turned up on Facebook — one of the 16-year-old cheerleader pole dancing and another of Russo being kissed by girls ages 14 and 16.
A cheerleader showed the photo of her teammate to her coach, according to court records. As a result, the pole-dancing cheerleader was kicked off the squad. A teacher who found out about the photos then alerted police.
Russo, who has a 17-year-old son, allegedly served alcohol to teens at the party. Girls were asked to take turns on the stripper pole. Teens told police that Russo had regularly hosted similar parties.
The father had gone inside a Giant Eagle store to get a prescription filled, but left his 3-year-old daughter behind in his car, police said. The temperature on Thursday in Pittsburgh was 18 degrees, with a wind chill of 6 degrees.
The child was alone for about 90 minutes, until she was spotted by a passerby, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported. Dad, who was not publicly identified, had fallen asleep in the store while waiting for his medicine. He was charged with endangering the welfare of a child and reckless endangerment. Thankfully, the little girl was unharmed.
It was unclear whether the father had forgotten the child or whether he thought it would be more convenient to go inside the store without her. Either way, as Minor Troubles readers know, the result of leaving a child alone in a car can be deadly.
Photo by Brandy Shaul