A Texas mother was taken into custody Tuesday after police alleged her 22-month-old child died when she left the infant in a car outside a Corpus Christi school on one of the hottest days of the year.

The mother, 33-year-old Hilda Ann Adame, was jailed on charges of causing serious bodily injury to a child and child endangerment/abandonment with imminent bodily injury, according to a Corpus Christi Police Department incident report.

It was not clear how long the infant had been in the car before the baby was found unresponsive, according to the incident report.

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[–] disgrunty 6 points 3 months ago (4 children)

I don't have kids and I don't plan to, but instead of all the smart crap in cars, why don't car manufacturers put some kind of car seat detection in? Like a little alarm that plays if you walk away from your car with a baby or child in it?

They can tell if someone's in a seat without their seatbelt, they should be able to work out a way to detect car seats too. This is 100% preventable.

Hell, not even car manufacturers. If someone made a Hackathon-type event where the goal was to make the best baby alert system, I'm sure there's at least one smart person out there who could crack this.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

They exist, some models do alert you if you have something in the back seat.

[–] disgrunty 1 points 3 months ago

That's good to hear! Hopefully it becomes more common or someone makes a universal kit to adapt existing vehicles someday. It probably wouldn't be as elegant as a built-in fix, but definitely less waste and expense.

[–] madcaesar 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

No can do, that makes too much sense.

Here is a touch screen and the HVAC controls are 4 menus deep.

[–] disgrunty 1 points 3 months ago

Dagnabbit you've got me there!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Why not reduce reliance on car centric commutes or something?

[–] disgrunty 1 points 3 months ago

That would be ideal, I agree. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't make cars safer in the meantime for children, who don't have a say in the matter.

[–] MTK 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Simple reason, people ignore/disable it.

Most people using cars are adults, only a small number also have a young enough child that this would be a worry. You can buy specialized pads that you put on the seat which reminds you if something was left there, and yet this happens a lot.

The truth of the matter is, people are the problem and a technological solution would have to be mich more complex to work around peoples' carelessness and ignorance

[+] [email protected] -7 points 3 months ago (2 children)

That would suck to be arrested after accidentally (even if it was pure stupidity) killing your child. My car got to 122 recently. That's an unthinkably bad day.

Parents, teach your kids how to bang on the door as early as you can, so they can at least ask for help in the event they're strapped into a car seat and can't escape.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

That's so fucking dark.

[–] Yawweee877h444 1 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Parents do not need to teach kids to bang on doors. Geez.

Parents need to be responsible and not leave their own kids in a car to die, or don't be parents in the first place.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Shit happens, even with loving parents. Do you know what it feels like to have four hours of sleep non-contiguous each day for three years? That's some parents' experience.

Teaching your kids to survive regardless of your parenting doesn't mean you're a bad parent. It means you care about your kids enough to do everything possible to make sure they survive.

[–] BambiDiego 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Sensibly, you're right.

In the real world, there's no excuse, just explanations.

A 2 year old just cannot be expected to handle a crisis of any sort. You can teach them to be careful, to be aware, to be expressive, to be communicative, but never to handle a real crisis.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Just gotta do your best, and hopefully you've done enough to ensure they survive to adulthood.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

This mistake happens to mature, professional people, of no discernable background, race, income. First parents, second parents. Doctors, layers, teachers, janitors.

Habit distribution, sleep deprivation and distraction have no pattern of afflicting only some cluster of "irresponsible" people, in so much that anyone could determine who is in, or out of that "irresponsible" group. Including you.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

https://archive.is/bCS84

Article about how and why these accidents happen, and the fallout

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (2 children)

He has five children. Today, he says, is the birthday of his sixth.

Get this man some condoms. No parent has enough time to properly raise six children. I think it's cruel to the kids to just keep having them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The volume of children is less an issue then the infrastructure around raising them.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Ah yes, we should expect others to raise our children.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

A program for daycare pickup is raising children? Tax breaks for parents is raising children?

Can't think of any ways to make children's lives more safe and predictable? Really? Work your brain a bit.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

How's that in any way relevant to the topic, though? Or are you just digressing? (which is fine)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It's not relevant to the original post but it is relevant in response to the article from which it was cited.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

It's pretty misleading, since that's not one of the parents who left their kids in a car