I know, this is Actually Infuriating, but … Also she didn’t just leave the now-dead kid in the car, she left two in there to die, but one survived. My guess: with brain damage. “Always Beautiful Medical Spa” FFS. Duck lips were totally worth it.
A baby died after his mother left him and his 2-year-old sibling inside a car while she was getting lip filler at a Bakersfield medical spa on a 101-degree day, authorities said.
It is estimated that Hernandez’s children were in the vehicle without air-conditioning for 90 minutes, wrote Det. Kyle McNabb, noting that the internal temperature of a car can rise to a blistering 143 degrees in just one hour of 100-degree weather.
Hernandez told police she found her baby foaming at the mouth and having an apparent seizure after emerging from her procedure at Always Beautiful Medical Spa, according to the police report. She frantically dialed 911, and both her children were transported to a hospital for treatment.
By the time her 1-year-old arrived at Adventist Health hospital, he wasn’t breathing, had no pulse, his lips were blue, and he had an internal body temperature of 107.2 degrees
It’s amazing how lethal cars are and we drive them every day without a care in the world. I never think about the particulate pollution spewing from my brakes or the noxious gases emitted from the exhaust. I don’t consider the pedestrians I will eventually hit if I drive long enough. I never think about anyone dying in my car from heatstroke. I think of my vehicle as the best and only solution to all of my transportation needs because every problem looks like a nail when your only tool is a hammer.
go back to fuckcars. the rest of the world has shit to do.
Reading news like this always breaks my heart because I can’t imagine the kid’s suffering before they died. Hugging my little ones a little tighter today 😓
Is this woman crazy? What kind of sane person would leave their kid alone in a car for two hours, especially in this heat?
However, her 2022 Toyota Corolla Hybrid is equipped with an automatic feature that turns the engine off if it has been left running for one hour while in park, police said. Police estimate that the engine turned off around 3 p.m. and the children were left without air conditioning until Hernandez returned around 4:30 p.m.>
Looks like she left the car on and it shut itself off. Still inexcusably stupid, but it wasn’t quite as brain dead as just deciding to leave them in a hot car in the middle of summer.
Her child died because of her stupidity and the over-engineering of the 2022 Toyota Corolla. c/fuckcars
yes, but… you’re telling me that she left a 1 yo and a 2 yo alone for 2,5 hours? forget the car and the weather. You shouldnt do that ANYWHERE. I wouldn’t have left my kid alone for 2,5 minutes at that age.
Not a parent, but I couldn’t imagine leaving an infant unattended for that amount of time, let alone in a car in a parking lot somewhere. I’m by no means excusing it, but things are fucked and every day the world seems to be getting dumber. I’m picking at the scraps of intelligence I can. Like yeah, she was dumb, but at least she THOUGHT there was AC in the car.
Idk man, things ain’t great and Im trying to find the humanity. It’s getting tougher to do.
Or if it’s my one year old, 2.5 seconds and she’s getting into something she’s not supposed to.
Our grand parents did this kind of stuff all the time. Kids were allowed to roam free in forests for hours. Weirdly if she’d left the kids in a forest they probably would be fine.
A lot of the danger comes from car infrastructure. Parking lots might as well be the surface of mercury on a hot day with almost no shade. Traffic poses a lethal hazard to kids. Almost all shade is removed on purpose in public urban areas lest god forbid homeless people decide to hang out at a covered rest stop. And don’t even think of letting kids wander around shops or commercial areas.
Not saying this lady did anything right but society has to own up to its role in making urban areas hostile to children.
There’s no way your grandparents left their kids to roam the forest as infants for hours.
Right??! This was a 1 year old and a 2 year old for Pete’s sake!
This is not a generational thing if you live in Bakersfield or Visalia or Fresno. Most of the time I’d agree.
my kid would have killed himself climbing up a ledge at that age. a 5 yo maybe, but i would need a source for your claim of 1 yos being left alone for hours in the forest
There isnt a source because parents didnt do that. Its rose tinted glasses.
And honestly, the vehicle engineers are partly to blame for this in my opinion. Are you telling me there are no sensors in the car to let you know if there is a person in the seat so that their stupid little seatbelt not fasten chimes can ring? If they can tell that there’s a person inside, or that there is still a seatbelt buckled, DON’T TURN THE AC OFF AUTOMATICALLY
@Pyr_Pressure @TheLoneMinon Cars are seeming to forget who is in charge.
I’ve a mate who’s just dropped over 100k on a brand new LandCruiser and deliberately went for not the top-spec because it has too many “safety” features. And he’s still finding things like it won’t drive if a door is open - so no leaning out to reverse his towed caravan. Lane departure assist is ridiculously aggressive (and actually dangerous when towing a big caravan). Dog on the back seats sets the seatbelt alarms off. And way too much other stuff. Some of it can be disabled permanently with the aid of an ODB dongle.
Car makers need to just stop.I had to drive a new Toyota Tacoma for a biology job. I needed to drive it in “offroad” conditions, which means there was grass over 12" in height (farm field).
It would automatically slam on the brakes and scare the shit out of me every time I tried to reverse and it thought the grass was something I was going to hit.
Drove me absolutely insane.
I do not condon leaving children alone in a vehicle for ANY amount of time…
But I also absolutely despise vehicle manufacturers thinking their unnecessary “features” are in any way needed at all, especially in a form which cannot be disabled or needs to be disabled after each time the vehicle turns off and then on.
Fucking hate vehicle manufacturer engineers. Probably one of the least needed jobs out there.
VEHICLES ALREADY HAVE EVERYTHING THEY NEED, STOP ADDING SHIT EVERY YEAR JUST FOR THE SAKE OF ADDING SHIT.
Well what do you want them to do, increase fuel efficiency??
Setting aside the ethics and children for a bit, I am disturbed by the idea of leaving a car running on a battery for an hour or longer. That is a good way to run down the battery and needing a AAA towing. Alternatively, leaving the engine on would use up gas. Plus, just general wear and tear on the vehicle.
Cars are expensive enough as it is.
Coming in as a close second after the death of one child and the endangerment of the other: wearing down the car battery.
I don’t understand how someone makes the logical leaps they do in these kinds of cases. Even from a purely selfish stand point, the risk of exactly what happened and the fallout are just not worth it to make that appointment right then and there or just have the kids sit in the lobby.
I must be losing my grip on reality, trying to reason why someone that thinks this way does the things they do.
if you can afford lip filler, you can afford in a babysitter instead of put their lives at risk, just my 2 cents…
Just get a baby sitter for 2 hours… Assuming it’s really that critical (which obviously this was not…)
Your first sentence, you assumed logical. The average person is dumb. Straight up stupid.
So many steps were taken here that made no sense. Like why would the mom even think it was ok, and why did the office tell the mom “Yea they can wait in the lobby” like I assume she didn’t give an age or anything cause no office worker is going to knowingly allow this to happen, or allow a 1 and 2 year old to just sit in the lobby.
Unfortunately this is a pretty common occurrence. There was a big furor about it about a decade ago with a social media fad called the “hot car challenge” where adults would sit in hot cars turned off in the sun to see how long they could last in them ostensibly to build awareness of the problem, and there were all sorts of helpful tips and design changes made to cars and phones to try to make it more difficult to forget your kids in hot cars. Myself I wonder if any of it had any actual impact because surely the sort of people who leave their kids in hot cars aren’t the smartest and probably don’t keep up with safety PSAs about the issue.
The left shoe trick - throwing my shoe in the car next to the kid - probably saved my kid’s life more than once.
One kind of parents who have these tragedies are tired ones. Which is most parents with small children.
Edit: not relevant in this case, but I’ll take any chance to advertise the shoe trick.
As a parent myself it always boggles my mind that people can forget that they have kids in the car with them. I’m always in dad mode when I have any kids with me, so I’ve never even come close to forgetting a kid in the car. Forgetting to grab the kid’s backpack for school sure, but forgetting a whole child in the car?
The biggest thing that most of those people have in common is that they think it couldn’t happen to them.
The thing is, I have two kids, and have heard about hot car deaths for years before having kids, so I make sure it doesn’t happen. I never leave the kids alone in the car on a hot day. They come with. Luckily we have cold weather most of the year so they can sit alone for a few minutes in a cold car, but never during the summer. Like, even before hearing about hot car deaths, I knew from a young age that cars get hot, and it’s just common sense not to leave a child in there, because I wouldn’t want to sit in there myself for any amount of time. Doesn’t matter if the AC is on full blast, that thing might cut out or fail for any reason, and then my kids are goners.
Before I had kids I would’ve been right there with you, but I am in a completely different mindspace anytime I’m caring for my kids than when I’m not.
When I’m in “dad mode” there’s a significant portion of my attention that’s constantly running through “Are the kids getting into trouble? When did I last see them? When were they last fed/watered/potty breaks? Are we about to pass something that they’ll see and decide they need to go to and therefore cost more time/money than I’ve budgeted for this trip and should I be taking a different route to avoid it? When did I last observe the kids alive, has it been more than 60 seconds I need to check on them again…” And the only way to break out of dad mode is if somebody else has taken over active care/monitoring of the kids or if the kids are both asleep in their beds. It’s a biological state that I seriously did not know was possible, and I simply can’t turn it off.
So when I say I can’t forget my kids in the car, this is what I mean, I’m so actively aware of my kids location and status at all times that I’m the primary caretaker that they can’t even try to wander off in a park or store without my noticing
Yeah, I’ve got that too. But confidence leads to complacency. I’ve thankfully never had it happen when it mattered, but on a couple of occasions I’ve found myself not being hypervigilant when I normally would be. It’s back on once I notice, but it only takes one slip up.
Most of these cases also involve a change in routine. You go about your normal day, feeling the way you normally do, because your mind has forgotten that something is different. Trusting your instinct to overcome that just isn’t a foolproof plan. I mean there is no foolproof plan, but there’s also no harm in taking a little extra precaution in your routine like putting your shoe or your wallet in the back seat.
confidence leads to complacency
I find that after having kids and seeing on the news what can go wrong, there is zero confidence in the kids or their surroundings. That’s why I have confidence in myself that I would never forget them, because I’m always scared. 😆 Never let them out of my sight on a parking lot, e.g. They will just start running and you need to wrangle and holler. Hold their hand over a cross walk, etc etc etc.
I mean I’ve left the house without my glasses and I’m legally blind without them, so I can understand just how absentminded a human can get.
That’s the thing. We non-absent-minded people cannot relate to how absent-minded people can be. We do not understand.
It depends how often you drive without the kids.
If you don’t always drop the kids off yourself, it’s easy to get half way to work on autopilot before realising you meant to drop them off.
Sleep deprivation is a weird thing.
I felt the same, until I had my first lousy sleeper (child who had trouble sleeping due to minor health stuff). After a month of lost sleep, I couldn’t remember my own name sometimes. I read once that sleep deprivation is effectively brain damage, and after that experience, I believe it.
I’ve been fucking tired as all hell, but a) I would not be driving a car with my child in it if I was so tired that I would forget I had a child. The fuck? That’s it. There’s no b). I would also fall asleep before I would forget I had a child. I cannot believe people really need a “trick” to help them remember they have a child. I just cannot relate.
a) I would not be driving a car with my child in it if I was so tired that I would forget I had a child. The fuck?
I hope you’re thankful for a lifestyle where you have that option. We should all strive to build a world where everyone does.
I mean, taking the bus should be an option in most cases, or? Maybe I’m inconsiderate right now?
In most US cities, no, it’s not an option. But we should work to make it an option :)
Plenty of place don’t have buses in the states
This article is worth a read. I think that anyone who says “I could NEVER…” are the exact people that are playing with fire. I don’t have children, but I still get anxiety thinking about what would happen if I did and any number of variables came up at the wrong moment in time.
This is not an attack on you. This article really helped me understand a situation where it isn’t some irresponsible person just leaving their kids alone for hours to get Botox assuming the car will stay on and cool. Humans are humans, and it’s sickening and devastating to think about how a simple mistake, a hiccup in the brain, could lead to the death of your own child.
Great article and one I always share when this argument comes up. It can happen with one simple mistake.
I wish I could read it—it’s paywalled. 😞
Plenty of smart parents fuck up while sleep deprived. That’s what made it such a popular tragedy to make PSAs about.
After having kids I totally understand how it can happen by mistake.
As a parent myself, I’m now doubly amazed at how few cases of forgetting happen. It’s so easy to do, and your brain is reduced to blomonge by sleep deprivation.
FYI, the “baby on board” signs aren’t generally meant as “don’t crash into me” signs, but “assume the driver is drunk and distracted” signs. Having been there, I try and give them plenty of space!
Of course it was Bakersfield.
she should have read her cars manual, and if thr manual didn’t cover the cars anti-features Toyota should be punished
Gonna assume that’s a joke??
The kids died because the engine auto shut off, so it’s actually an interesting question as to whether the manufacturer bears responsibility for having implemented a ‘feature’ dangerously.
Leaving a baby in a car for 90 minutes is neglect and dangerous no matter what features that car had.
I agree. But that doesn’t really address the issue under discussion
It does though. Leaving the baby in the car is the issue. The car manufacturer can’t be responsible for someone being a horrible parent, no matter if their manual said not to leave a baby in the car or not. It’s common sense not to do that.
Tragedy is not usually due to a single cause. Multiple failures have to happen for a tragedy to occur. In this case, the mum left them unattended, and the manufacturer implemented a feature in a dangerous way. It should have been obvious in the design phase that this was a risk, to pets if nothing else. The solution is also well known, there have been groups lobbying to make occupant sensors standard for literally decades. That they implemented one without the other is arguably corporate negligence for nothing more than extremely minor cost savings.
car manufacturers should inform the users about features that are potentially unintuitive and different from previous cars (let’s say all features that weren’t commonplace 2-3 decades ago)
Is this mildly infuriating? No. This is a joke comm, not a group cry.
grrr, im so mildly infuriated rn
Almost anyone can have children, but not everyone can be a parent.
One of my more controversial views is that having children should require a permit, like adoption currently requires, you’d need proof that you are able and willing to raise a child in the environment they deserve to be raised in.
Yes I realize what the downsides would be.
So have you ever heard of eugenics?
and by etymology it is good
Personally, I think that’s the wrong approach. We’re very individualistic in the states and that leads to thinking that each child is the responsibility of their parent(s) and no one else, but if we had a more communal approach to raising children and acknowledged their wellbeing is a collective responsibility perhaps this could have been prevented. There’s a lot of personal dysfunction in this story, but that’s exactly the kind of thing that community can make up for.
We should have well funded and robust childcare services so that people who aren’t responsible enough to take care of children have something to lean on. In a sane society one person dropping the ball shouldn’t result in a child’s death. Does having a communal place where children are well cared for without the need for payment really defy the imagination? In a nation where we can’t even provide basic healthcare perhaps it defies expectation, but we will never achieve what we can’t imagine.
I’ve seen that as a bit by a comedian before as well.
She has pleaded not guilty to all charges and is being held in lieu of $1,080,000 bail,
My initial thought for this was “How do you plea Not Guilty willfully leaving two children in a car for 90 minutes.” but then I found this later on
However, her 2022 Toyota Corolla Hybrid is equipped with an automatic feature that turns the engine off if it has been left running for one hour while in park, police said. Police estimate that the engine turned off around 3 p.m. and the children were left without air conditioning until Hernandez returned around 4:30 p.m.
Still super shitty, but also I think change the tone a little. Her expectation was that the car was going to be climate controlled for the procedure. Still stupid of her, and kids shouldn’t be left alone that long, but it defo let me understand the “not guilty” plea
She she parked at about 2, car turned off at about 3, she came back at about 4.30. She left a 1 year old and a 2 year old alone in public for 2.5 hours.
Exactly. Even if it was 68F outside, it’s still extreme negligence.
To add a nugget to the shit mountain, she would’ve left the car running for 2.5 hours.
People regularly camp overnight in their Toyota hybrids with them running, there’s an entire Prius camping subreddit about it. I’ve done it myself to visit a dying family member in the desert, it only cost me $5.00 of gas to let it run all night with AC on. Engine only kicks on to charge the battery. So the car itself is whatever.
This is banned in my city specifically because idling cars produce a ton of localized pollution. I can go some places in the summer and basically get sick walking through a parking lot because it is filled with idling cars and I have (fairly mild) asthma. Please do not idle your car for only the purpose of maintaining temperature .
If they have a hybrid, the engine doesn’t idle all night, only intermittently to charge the battery.
It is more ethical and better for the environment to leave a hybrid running all night (engine only kicking on every so often) than a typical home or apartment which has a much bigger daily carbon impact. A hybrid isn’t the same as a normal idling car.
People die in heat and live in their cars. Do you go without air conditioning when it’s over 100 degrees out? No, because you don’t want to die of heatstroke, right? So why is your indoor climate control more justified?
And yeah car exhaust is bad for everyone, I agree, including the person in the idling car.
I probably wouldn’t go camping if I thought the weather was hot enough that I won’t survive without AC…
if there aren’t any hotels it’s pretty reasonable to use the car as a climate controlled tent
People die in heat and live in their cars.
It’s just called dry camping, some people don’t have a choice.
This comment right here is the actual “Mildly Infuriating” part of this story. I bike to work, recycle trash and use the train for my vacations, all in an effort to reduce my personal carbon footprint to save our dying planet. And then there’s egoistical assholes who leve their cars running for days on end just because they can’t handle the mild inconvenience of a night outside.
No offense to you though. Your story sounds like a one time off due to very special circumstances.
If they have a hybrid, it is more ethical and better for the environment to leave it running all night (engine only kicking on every so often) than a typical home or apartment which has a much bigger daily carbon impact.
Or… hear me out… You don’t use an AC at all! Especially for camping.
Dry camping is just a term for sleeping in your car. It isn’t literally camping per se but it can be.
You have to use an AC when it’s hot out or you’ll die.
Using a clothes dryer has a bigger impact than a hybrid car running AC.
What the fuck
Correct yea, the 90 minute timeframe was without AC.
And that assumes the AC didn’t crap out earlier because it was left idling in ridiculous heat. The system is not designed to be idled that long, and the cooling systems assume the car is moving for most of the time it’s on. (Both the engine and the cabin ac here.)
Even if the car didn’t turn off automatically, it’s still dangerous and in the “extremely stupid” degrees of negligence.
Firmly agree with the statement that it was irresponsible because yes it was regardless.
However, disagree with the statement that a climate control system is not meant to be operated while idle. That is an old myth that I expect came from back when there was fewer electrical components in the car so not turning the ac /off/ before turning the vehicle off would risk damaging the cars electrical.
To a vehicle’s climate control system it doesn’t give a damn if it’s driving or idle. Now, while being idle, you have less fuel efficiency, And if you don’t have the engine running, it will drain more battery than needed, which will make your battery less efficient. But as for actual wear and tear on the components, running it at idle is almost no difference than whether you’re driving with it on.
Again, though, didn’t claim it wasn’t irresponsible either way, But it’s highly unlikely that Climate system would have failed if the vehicle had stayed on.
However, disagree with the statement that a climate control system is not meant to be operated while idle. That is an old myth that I expect came from back when there was fewer electrical components in the car so not turning the ac /off/ before turning the vehicle off would risk damaging the cars electrical.
that’s not actually a myth. The car is functionally not designed to be left on idle for extended periods. (Note, I’m saying extended periods. Warming/cooling your car at idle is normal. idling at a stop light is normal. Five minutes while waiting to pick some one up is normal. Leaving it to stay cool for 2 hours is outside that design window.)
When an engine is idling, it’s turning at a lower RPM than when moving. of particular note here is that the alternator and AC compressor are both driven by the serpetine belt directly connected to the crankshaft. The lower RPM makes both less efficient. For the compressor, what this means is that the AC system is turning more slowly than it normally would, reducing the total amount of cooling. For the alternator; it produces less electricity and may cause the battery to be discharging. Depends on some things, including how hard the AC is having to work, etc.
Further, because the car is not moving, there is less air moving around the engine compartment (or wherever the radiator for the engine and the AC is located.) This equates to higher operating temperatures for the engine, as well as yet more reduced ability for the AC system to remove excess heat from the cabin.
just because an AC can be run at idle for extended periods doesn’t mean it’s designed to, and doing so, especially on old or poorly maintained systems, in excessive heat, is likely to cause it to crap out where it wouldn’t have normally. Is it a particularly high probability? Not really. Is it still too high considering it’s a life-safety system? fucking absolutely.
This very much depends on the car.
Most modern computer controlled cars will not discharge the battery at idle unless you have a powerful sound system or an alternator that’s already on its way out. And they can adjust idle anyway if needed, most will increase idle when AC is turned on now to compensate the increased load on the engine. Driving the AC compressor is such a light load compared to the moving a 2 ton vehicle.
Also, many newer cars may even run an electric compressor instead of one driven off the motor. Think hybrid vehicles, it wouldn’t be feasible to have an AC system that turns off half the time if it’s running on the electric motors.
What you might deal with is heat soak if the fans can’t move enough air over the condenser core. But modern vehicles are immensely more efficient than even 10 year old vehicles.
What you might deal with is heat soak if the fans can’t move enough air over the condenser core. But modern vehicles are immensely more efficient than even 10 year old vehicles.
You’re point?
They’re not designed to idle for extended periods, and doing so puts strain on the systems. that the cars are “more efficient” doesn’t change that.
the AC compressor isn’t a significant load, no. But it’ expects a certain engine RPM coming into it, and it’s designed at that. It’s significantly less when the engine is idling because that’s below it’s designed range. There’s a reason the manufacturers tell you not to idle your car for extended periods (mine says more than 10 minutes, my last one said 5.) and this is part of it.
the increase in RPM modern cars do isn’t for the AC system. it’s to keep the engine from stalling and running smoothly… the compressor is still not designed to operate at that RPM.
And she had a hybrid vehicle btw
It’s a Toyota hybrid though, they are regularly used for camping.
https://www.reddit.com/r/priusdwellers/
The engine getting overheated isn’t usually a concern because it only turns on to charge the big battery. Sometimes if it’s hot inside the car, the engine in Toyota hybrids will stay on indefinitely, but thats to reduce the heat on the big battery. If the inside of the car is cool, then the big battery is cooled and the engine won’t stay on. Even in 101 degree heat, that’s still over 100degrees additional to overheat an engine and it only runs for about 5min at a time to charge the big battery.
I would never use this info as an excuse to do what she did though ofc, no one should leave children that small unattended in a car, not even for 5minutes.
Is it a particularly high probability? Not really. Is it still too high considering it’s a life-safety system? fucking absolutely.
You doesn’t sounds confident on something you claim tbh. Also it’s a lot of technical truth but not really claim.
Car usually idle at 700/800rpm, this is normal working rpm for both alternator and compressor(because of course it is). Unless your car is about to stall due to whatever issue your car have, it should be within the normal working rpm and have enough refrigerant pumped. Variable compressor is even better, as it can adjust the amount of refrigerant pumped based on the car’s rpm, instead of only work well within a fixed range of rpm.
For alternator, there’s regulator inside that can control the voltage it output based on the rpm. The voltage output need to be stable across all normal working rpm, and if the voltage drop too much under load and in idle rpm, it’s most likely there’s underlying issue with your alternator. So if the voltage output is so low while idling that it discharge the battery, your alternator need to be replaced.
For the engine, moving air doesn’t cool the engine too much, it’s the coolant running within the car engine that’s cooling it. Moving air only ever cool the engine so slightly that it’s considered negligible, and i dare say, it won’t matter. If your engine run hot while idling for a long time, there’s likely an issue with your engine cooling system, be it clogged radiator, faulty waterpump, bad thermostats, etc etc.
Also AC condenser is usually locate in front of a radiator, right at the front grille, and its cooled with a fan sucking air in from the outside. A slightly hot engine compartment does not affect the cooling capability much as the air flow will not allow the hot air to reach the condenser. The fan also blow right at the engine, so the argument of less air flowing through the engine compartment does not make sense to me.
If your compressor spoiled earlier than it would because you idle a lot, it’s not because it’s being run in idle and idling cause it to fail early, it’s because while it’s idling you’re using it, as people usually judge a car usage by the mileage and never calculate how much they leave their car in idle, making it feels like it failed prematurely. It’s a total myth that doesn’t make any sense.
Also it’s a hybrid.
Source: am mechanic
The 1yr old and 2 yr old were left alone in a car, for
90150 minutes.This was negligience long before a child died.
Edit - misread the times, its so much worse.
Also you’re supposed to wait a full year before becoming pregnant again after having a kid so your body can heal and re-normalize. Having kids that close together is hell for parenting and hell for your body
Even if it weren’t for the car turning itself off, the car could overheat idling in the heat. Hybrids are not immune from that. I own one and had it happen while idling because my kid was napping and I stayed in the car with him in the driveway of the house. I was in the car, and noticed the AC suddenly got hot. I turned the car off and noticed the pool of coolant under the car. I woke up the kid, and went inside and ordered a radiator (which was a bitch to install btw). It’s incredibly negligent to leave your kids in a running car on a hot day. Also, someone could just come in and steal the running car with the kids in it. I hope they throw the book at her tbh.
Yeah I still think she should be charged with child endangerment though because you never leave kids that young (too young apparently to open the door and leave) alone unattended, especially for that long.
…and especially in a running car.
I’m emphasizing that even if she had left them.in her home for that long, it is wrong. Obviously it is worse because of the car
Setting aside the specifics of the case, I do think that from a UI standpoint, cars either need to support being left in park without the climate control eventually cutting off or be so extremely clear that this will happen that it would be extremely difficult for a user to miss, as this is a legitimate example of a “fail-deadly” feature.
IIRC from reading comments from people who have slept in their car and very much want the ability to leave the climate control system active, at least some Toyota models do support leaving the climate control active for extended periods of time, but the car needs to be in “Ready” mode. It was not immediately obvious to users that this was the case.
I own the same car, and it does tell you the car will turn off after an hour. As soon as the door is opened, you get a “car will automatically turn off after one hour. Do you want to disable this” type of message. It also pings you with the same message in the app.
Also, she left a one year old and a two year old completely unsupervised for two and a half hours. I wouldn’t even trust a four year old with that much unsupervised time; little kids are personified suicide attempts.
You always plead not guilty when arraigned. That gives your lawyer time to make a deal with the prosecutor.
IANAL but isn’t that the purpose of a “no contest” plea? Its a plea somewhere between guilty and not-guilty without the bad look of pleading not-guilty on something you’re obviously guilty of
You’re always allowed to change your plea. You should not plea to anything (in fact you shouldn’t talk to the cops at all) until you’ve discussed your situation with your lawyer.
She has pleaded not guilty to all charges and is being held in a hot car with no AC in lieu of $1,080,000 bail, according to the Kern County district attorney’s office.
FTFY
Death by irony
jesus christ, the mother was fucking 20, and she was allowed to take the children into the lobby but opted out of it.
she blatently knew and asked about her options and chose the one with the highest risk.
wait… the staff KNEW?
Fuck them too.
they knew she had children, but im not completely aware she asked the day of the appointment or not. its completely possible she asked when booking the appointment on a different day. its just at some point the establishment was asked.
edit: it mentions earlier in the day. so there was no guarantee that the staff KNEW the kids were out there during the appointment, but knew she had kids.
whether they knew she took them with her for the appointment is a different question thats yet to be answered
Highest risk? Death was almost guaranteed in this case.
She did leave the car running, but it shut off after an hour.
It’s still super negligent to leave a 1 and 2 year old alone in public for 2.5h, regardless of the weather.
Well the conditioning part of the air turned off when the engine turned off. The police reported the air was still going but warm when they arrived. Meaning she murdered her child and will likely get off with some kind of child neglegence charge.
She deserves worse, but honestly I can’t see a judge thinking she won’t have already received punishment by losing her child.
Murder requires intent. Her intent was that the car would be running the whole time she was in the appointment. She wasn’t aware the car would shut off after an hour running in park.
That makes it negligent manslaughter.
I understand you just mean the term murder has legal definitions that vary. In California it may fall under this second section.
"Sentencing for Involuntary Manslaughter: Involuntary manslaughter, under Penal Code Section 192(b), involves causing a death without intent to kill, often through reckless or negligent actions. It differs from voluntary manslaughter by focusing on the lack of malice and intent. The law penalizes those whose careless conduct results in fatal outcomes.
Involuntary manslaughter is typically classified as a felony, with potential imprisonment ranging from two to four years. The court considers the defendant’s conduct and case circumstances, including the degree of negligence and foreseeability of harm. Restitution to the victim’s family for economic losses is often required, emphasizing the broader impact of the offense. Probation may be considered for first-time offenders or cases with mitigating circumstances."
its only guaranteed because of the amount of time the surgery took in the end. if it was shorter, it would have been averted. (say if it eas hour 10 or 20, would have been still negligent but they would probably be alive. the actual time was double that)
basically there was a chain of decisions and events that led to the deaths, but she still chose the one where the worst outcome was potentially death.
