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.
The judge wanted Lisa Marie Morris to be a lesson to all other parents — if you forget your child in a hot car, you go to jail.
Morris, 26, was sentenced last week to five years in prison followed by five years on probation for leaving her baby inside her car. Morris and her cousin had returned to her Augusta, Ga., area home after running errands on Aug. 7, 2008, and Morris says she thought the cousin had brought the child inside. Instead, Dalton Morris, who was just six weeks old, died in the car, where temperatures reached up to 126 degrees.
Morris pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and asked the judge not to send her to jail because she needs to take care of her 5-year-old daughter.
But Judge Michael N. Annis showed no mercy, the Augusta Chronicle reported. He said that Dalton’s death was completely preventable.
Thanks to her fast-texting fingers, an Atlanta-area teenager alerted her friends to rescue her from a sexual assault.
The 16-year-old girl was walking home when a stranger jumped out of a car, grabbed her and forced her into the woods, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. While her head was being held down, the teen managed to text a friend for help, police said. As the girl’s buddies arrived, the suspect and two other men fled the scene.
On Tuesday, police arrested Jose Hernandez-Ruiz and charged him with kidnapping and sexual battery for the Aug. 20 attack.
A teacher’s aide apparently forgot to take her seven-month-old girl to a babysitter and instead left the child in a school parking lot while she worked on Friday. Addeleena Sanchez died after being left in the car for five hours on Friday at Bowie Elementary School near Dallas, the Corsicana Daily Sun reported.
The child’s mother, 23, called her babysitter around 1:20 p.m., and that’s when she realized that she had forgotten the girl in the car. The temperature then in Corsicana, Tex., was 89 degrees. Police are investigating and have not yet decided whether to charge the mother.
So far this year, 29 kids have died after being left in hot cars. See stories about the tragedies here.
A one-year-old boy was strangled after a lift cord loop fell into his portable crib. Another boy, 13 months old, had his head caught between the exposed inner cord and cloth on the back of a Roman shade. And a four-year-old girl died after being tangled in the loop of a verticle blind cord that wasn’t attached to the wall or floor.
The blinds or shades in the deaths were made or imported by Lewis Hyman of Carson, Calif., and Vertical Land of Panama Beach City, Fla. But four other companies are also recalling their products as well. The massive recall involves about 5.5 million blinds or shades.
Pottery Barn Kids is recalling Roman shades after reports of six kids becoming entangled in the inner cord. Ikea has decided to recall Roman blinds after a 2-year-old boy was nearly strangled in a looped beaded chain. Target is recalling cloth and bamboo Roman shades made by Victoria Classics even though injuries haven’t been reported. Similarly, Lutron Shading Solutions is taking back its roller shades although it hasn’t received any negative reports.
For more info on the specific blinds being recalled, check out the web site for the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
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.
One-year-old Giselle Gomez was so overheated after being left in a car that her face and body became covered with yellow heat blisters. The child died on Wednesday, and now her mother, Jennifer Gomez, has been jailed and charged with felony child endangerment.
Jennifer Gomez, 22, had left Giselle and her two-year-old sister in the car while she visited at relative at an insurance agency in Belleville, Mo. The kids had been sleeping, and the car’s engine was left running, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
The older child might have accidently turned on the heater, but later managed to leave the car and was not injured, detectives told the newspaper. Giselle wasn’t so lucky — she was strapped into a car seat — and was trapped inside the hot vehicle for at least an hour. The outside temperature at the time was 89 degrees.
She apparently wanted to see what Daddy was doing. But Donald Haslem didn’t see his 2-year-old daughter when he was moving his Jeep Wrangler from his neighbor’s carport. When he pulled the Jeep forward, he realized that he had run something over, according to a news release from the Winter Haven, Fla., police department.
Laysha Haslem was pronounced dead at a local hospital on Friday. An average of two kids die each week as a result of being hit by cars in driveways, according to Kids and Cars, a safety advocacy group. Summer is a deadly season, as children tend to be outside. Click here for safety tips and how to teach your child about the dangers of cars.
The boy had disappeared from his mother’s sight and was later found face-down in the shallow end of the outdoor lagoon pool at Kalahari Resorts on Sunday. Hassan Itani, of Dearborn, Mich., didn’t know how to swim and had been playing with an older brother around the pool, which is from three to four feet deep, the Associated Press reported.
Police are investigating the accident at the resort in Sandusky, Ohio, which is billed as the nation’s largest water park. In May, Ohio state inspectors had told Kalahari managers that the park needed more lifeguards and that “many water rides were operated in a careless and unsafe manner.”
Kalahari management said this week that staffing level on Sunday was appropriate and included four head lifeguards and two supervisors.
A four-year-old girl died of heat exposure after falling asleep in her family’s SUV while it was parked at a fleamarket in Brownsville, Tex., on on Sunday. Her mom has been charged with felony abandonment and/or endangerment of a child.
Felicitas Alexandra Cordova is the 23rd child this year to die from hypothermia or heat stroke as a result of being in a hot, parked vehicle, according to a S.F. State meterologist who tracks the trend. More info on hot-car deaths nationwide is here.
The high temperature on Sunday in Brownsville was 96 degrees. Olga Salazar, 37, was running three booths at the flea market with her older children when she lost track of Felicitas, authorities said. It’s unclear why the girl opened the door and got inside the vehicle.
“She went in there and went to sleep or was in there sleeping,” Police Lt. Orlando Rodriguez told the Brownsville Herald. “She could have easily gone in there and lost consciousness (from) the heat, which is something that unfortunately happens.”