A father forgot his baby in a hot car for 9 hours — and you could too
A father in San Antonio drove to work on Friday just like any other day.
His baby son was in the backseat and he was supposed to drop him off at daycare. Then he was supposed to go to work, and he arrived in the Walmart parking lot to start his shift at 6:15 a.m.
Problem is, he forgot to drop his son off at daycare, according to Fox 4. So when he walked out to his car at the end of his shift, nine hours later, he discovered his baby was dead.
Witnesses told police the man became hysterical and had to be transported to the hospital for chest pains. Emergency responders were not able to revive the baby.
No charges have been filed. It’s the 27th heatstroke death this year due to children being left in hot cars.
It’s easy to hear situations about the one above and think the father must be a bad parent. It’s more comforting to believe that, because no one wants to believe they would ever forget a helpless baby in a hot car.
But science shows it could happen to anyone, no matter how good of a parent you are or how much you love your child.
Dr. David Diamond, a professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa, looked for the medical explanation of Forgotten Baby Syndrome. He found the problem in most cases is the parts of the brain controlling new information and your “autopilot” mode are competing with each other. And sometimes autopilot wins.
The basal ganglia is the part of the brain that controls our habits, and it plays a large part in driving, according to Diamond.
“Once you've driven from Point A to Point B enough times, you can do it without thinking,” Diamond told Parents Magazine. “You might not even remember the trip.”
When new information enters this habit, such as if a family member calls and asks you to pick up something from the store, or you need to drop a child off at daycare that day, your basal ganglia now has to compete with the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, the parts of your brain that control new information. If you’ve had a family member call to ask you to pick milk up at the store and you agree, but you drive home anyway without thinking about it, you’ve experienced the basal ganglia winning that competition.
“When your partner says, ‘Where’s the milk?’ you feel flustered because you remember the conversation, but for some reason you came home instead,” Diamond said. “The basal ganglia actually suppress the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus from bringing that memory to your consciousness.”
That’s exactly what happens in many cases when parents leave their children in hot cars. And for those who would argue that milk and a child are very different, you’re obviously right, but that doesn’t matter to your brain’s autopilot.
“As a parent I sympathize with that view,” Diamond said. “But as a scientist I can tell you that the basal ganglia can suppress all kinds of memories, even of things that are the most important to us.”
So what can you do to make sure you don’t become a parent that suffers the horrible tragedy of losing a child, and worse, knowing it’s your fault? Diamond suggests making looking at your backseat part of your routine every time you drive, that way autopilot can work with you to protect your baby, rather than against you.
This story was originally published August 15, 2016 at 9:28 AM with the headline "A father forgot his baby in a hot car for 9 hours — and you could too."