Heartbreaking cases of parents accidentally leaving children in hot cars | 60 Minutes Australia

there are very few words to describe the tragedy or the suffering of the parents you're about to meet their intelligence hard-working upstanding people with one terrible thing in common they've all been responsible for killing their own babies by leaving them in the car usually on a hot day busy lives are changed to the daily routine or being forgetful for just a moment is all it takes the parents have faced the most serious of charges however experts say they're not criminals simply forgetful but before you judge them take a moment to heed their warning I just remember feeling like I left my body for a second like like this I was watching a TV show a bad TV show Christie Cavallaro is describing the unthinkable it was easily the most horrific day of both of our lives the loss of her 13 month old daughter Sofia she was just the best baby you know she didn't want to let anything happen without her being front and center of any kind of social event she was I would say she was a perfect baby you know it was just almost too good to be true Sofya or ray-ray as she was affectionately nicknamed was also the apple of her father's eye she was so beautiful she was so perfect she was such a good little girl but three years ago Brett Cavallaro was responsible for killing his baby girl his morning routine always started with dropping his daughter at daycare but on this one day he forgot Brett left Sofia strapped into her seat in his car parked right outside his work on a blistering hot day how did that morning start out we had overslept that morning so Britt was obviously running late for work she was running late for daycare and it was just chaotic and you know he headed down the driveway and down the hill and that morning he turned right mm-hmm and we don't we don't know what happened we don't know why and so our our entire tragedy is the genesis of a single wrong turn and and unfortunately this particular wrong turn decimated our entire family I just drove to work and strangely I that morning was it was gonna be a day at the daycare where it was tropical day and in my mind when when I was at work I just I'm picturing her at daycare with that tropical dress on and it's never never came to me that she was in my truck Brett still didn't realize until Christy picked him up for lunch that day three and a half hours after their daughter should have been dropped at daycare we were driving down to a restaurant not far from his office and we were just talking about how cute she looked that day and he got really quiet and I said what is going on and that's when he said I can't remember dropping ray off at daycare and my heart just sank rayray was still strapped in her Center Brett and Christy raced back to his truck parked at his office but it was far too late one hour in nineteen minutes after that first 9-1-1 call was logged she was declared passed [Music] the pain was immeasurable and I don't know that there's anything worse that a couple could live through and Britt what are you saying to yourself at this stage how could you leave your child in the car I still don't know I still ask myself all the time but I'll never get the answer to that and if it was a choice between taking one life or another my begged take mine tragically Brett and Christy's experience is not unique either overseas or here over the past three years in Australia there have been seven such deaths where parents have forgotten their babies are in the car it really is just too hard to imagine except for the poor parents who've been through that moment where they realize exactly what they've done the scene is a birth day care center a hot afternoon just before Christmas and a dad comes to collect his baby boy parents arrive at the childcare center this morning stunned by what's been called a terrible accident routine pickup suddenly turns to panic when puzzled daycare workers tell him you never dropped him off the 11 month old baby boy was found inside a vehicle outside a daycare center on tour Carter Boulevard after that terrible moment dawn the next few minutes are simply unimaginable but Dad and the daycare workers raced outside to his car which was parked just inside here his little boy had in fact been strapped into his baby seat inside that car all day they grabbed him out and they tried their best but nothing could be done to save the 11 month old one mistake is all it took one fatal distraction if you ever walked into a room and forgotten why it was you went into the room in the first place that's a lapse in short-term memory and that can happen to everyone and tragically in this case that one thing may be taking your child out of the car dropping your child at daycare indeed and it's at that point that you you fill your short-term memory it's it's in its capacity that you're able then to lose things professor Matt Mundy is a memory expert at Milburn's Monash University he says these cases of parents leaving kids in cars are not the result of negligence and so that one goal of stopping the car becomes further down that list if you like rather it's a function of the brains coping mechanism which is there to deal with the distractions and pressures of everyday life the best way that some of these parents have explained how they were thinking at the time is that their brain went onto autopilot now is that an excuse or psychologically is that real for me absolutely real take just driving to work for instance there are lots of things you need to do when you're driving a car you need to be absolutely aware of the road attention to detail but there's a lot of things that you don't need to pay attention to and so you can set your autopilot to do those things this has been described as a fatal distraction I think that's a really good descriptor of what happens distraction is one of the worst things to occur for your short-term memory and this is scientific this is a scientific explanation of what the brain is capable of absolutely your brain is capable of forgetting something you're capable of not remembering you didn't do it and therefore when asked you can fill in that information from previous experiences coming up Australia's first criminal charges for fatal distraction manslaughter which carries a 20 year jail term and how a car can become an oven in minutes so you can feel the big wall of food come strike a need to fill that straight up that's next on 60 minutes in a Melbourne test laboratory we're firing up a typical summer's day robbed unis from the motoring Group NRMA is monitoring the conditions this one of these lights it's replicating a good hot summer day about 35 degrees the car has now been sealed what immediately is happening inside there to the temperature the temperature 70 percent of the increased temperature happens within five minutes of closing the car there 90 percent of the temperature increase happens within 15 minutes of shutting that door so it's very important to understand how quick the temperature rises within the car as soon as you close those doors quick ism it's very quick the fact is the first short few minutes are critical to the survival of a baby strapped in a seat [Music] [Music] and after one hour the interior is fatally hot 54 degrees so you can feel the big wall of heat come straight I think you feel that straight up so you can you understand there's no circulation in there and all of a sudden you've over noon you've gone whack and felt a straight in your face like an hour 54 degrees inside it goes without saying that this is fatal the chances that baby as a zero-zero now had no idea that I could forget something so precious I really had no clue I had no idea whatsoever that you could know when we leave a child in the car Mary Parks lived her son Juan in his car seat for eight hours near her workplace in Blacksburg Virginia after a decade of trying to have kids Mary and her husband Jeff adopted two boys we had been going through a town where our keep both care kids had been sick and running fevers [Music] Jeff agreed to stay home with their sick older son Byron while Mary decided to drop baby Juan at daycare and then head into world when I arrived at work that day I told my co-workers that I had taken one to day care and that barn was at home sick and that Jeff was taking care of him entirely what you believed it happened yes it didn't even occur to you that you hadn't dropped you know I was I I knew that he was safer day care that false memory turned to horror when Mary arrived at daycare in the afternoon to collect one I met one of his teachers and she said is one okay is he feeling good um we were missed him today at school and that was my first indication that anything was wrong and I said to her he was at school and she said no he wasn't at school and I took off running for the car he had been in the car all day he he had been in the car for over eight hours at that point I ran to the car praying all the way they would be fine I knew that had been a warm day I remember saying over and over I would never hurt my child so how did I kill him I got a phone call and she said something about one said I said she goes something like eight I think I've killed our son and I said what what and she comes you just come right away to me it was it was so surreal how do I mean how could it happen how could you forget something that you love so much [Music] if this is a very difficult question but I guess it's you've thought about it before but have you ever blamed your wife that's I don't think so not not intentionally maybe subconsciously and just think you know why how could this how could you have let this happen type thing but I mean I know 100% that it was not intentional her part or anything like that so it's hard to blame someone for something that they had little control over it wasn't just their loss and grief that Jeff and Mary had to deal with it was also the full force of the law I was indicted with manslaughter and felony child abuse so this was like 7 months after the incident occurred we were fortunate enough that the DA made the decision that they would not prosecute so all charges were dropped against me so it was well over two years before I knew the legal outcome [Music] like Mary Brett Cavallaro was also under criminal investigation by a grand jury after his daughter Sofia died in his car the case was eventually dropped but he's doing time every day no jail sentence could even compare to theirs there's nothing that can really be done - yeah that's worse than living with the guilt and pain of losing your child that figure was a lifetime sentence it is it truly is I failed her and that piece just just still tears me to pieces [Music] now the strong arm of the law is being flexed here in Australia also in Bendigo a mother of three faced trial for leaving her baby to die in her car parked in the family driveway during a Victorian heatwave in 2012 Jade pool thought her baby Bella was tucked safely in her cotton distraught she called police thinking that child had been kidnapped Jade pool faced the most severe charge ever laid over this alleged crime in Australia manslaughter which carries a 20-year jail term but Jade's lawyers argued that her tragedy was in fact a case of forgotten baby syndrome it is the first time that defense has been used in Australia and in this Bendigo courthouse the jury found her not guilty when the verdict was read out Jade collapsed in tears but increasingly the lesson in America is that compassion not criminal charges is the best response to these tragic cases if you have the ability to forget your cell phone you have the ability to forget your child and people don't understand those words they go oh well how could you say a cell phone is as important as a child with dozens of hot car child deaths each year in the u.s. there is organized help for the parents Janette Finnell is the founder of kids and cars who provide legal support and counseling many parents watching this will be saying well it just won't happen to me I'm a good parent I do everything right they must have done something wrong and I can tell you the biggest mistake a parent could ever make is to think it can't happen to them because they need to sit in my shoes for 20 years and watch case after case after case so anyone that thinks that this can't happen to them they're kidding themselves [Music] breton Christie Cavalera established a foundation in their daughter's name so this this stays on the car seat that stays on the car seat they raise awareness about hot car deaths and have helped develop a phone app that activates an alarm when a driver leaves the car with the child still in their seat and you can always test this by simply pressing the button the Cavallaro is also lobbied successfully for thousands of daycare centers across America to agree to call parents if their child doesn't turn up on schedule I have had numerous and continual interactions with some of her teachers that were there that day and one of the things that haunt them is that some of them did notice that she wasn't there you know that daycare teacher has had major struggles with not calling [Music] three years on from the loss of babies of fear the pain for Brett and Christy is still unimaginable [Music] but they have been able to move on in plant [Music] eighteen months ago some joy returned to their lives with the arrival of twin daughters Gianna and Chiara I think the best description is a great gift after great tragedy they don't take away the pain they don't take away the memories of that pain they don't replace what we have lost because what we have lost is immeasurable but people often call these children who are born after the loss of another child rainbow babies and I like that description very much because we were blessed we got a double rainbow and I mean how many people how many people could be blessed that way hello I'm Liam Bartlett thanks for watching to keep up with the latest from 60 minutes Australia make sure you subscribe to our Channel you can also download the 9 now app for full episodes and other exclusive 60 minutes content

Channel: 60 Minutes Australia

Views: 519,745

Rating: 4.4194155 out of 5

Keywords: 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes Australia, Liz Hayes, Charles Wooley, Tara Brown, Liam Bartlett, Allison Langdon, Tom Steinfort, Ellen Fanning, Peter Overton, Karl Stefanovic, Peter Stefanovic, Jana Wendt, Jennifer Byrne, Paul Barry, Peter Harvey, Michael Usher, Ross Coulthart, George Negus, Ian Leslie, Gerald Stone, Sarah Abo, parents leaving children in cars, heartbreaking mistake, parent neglect, fatal distraction

Id: J6Gc3tuJ1LE

Length: 19min 30sec (1170 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 30 2019