6-month-old boy dies in hot car after parent forgot to drop him off at day care: Sheriff

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abcnews.go.com

A 6-month-old boy died after being left for hours in a hot car in Louisiana, authorities said.

The baby was found dead in the backseat by his parent at about 5:46 p.m. Tuesday, according to the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office.

When the parent went to pick up the baby from day care after work, they realized they forgot to drop him off at day care that morning, the sheriff's office said.

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There’s actually a great article on this. Warning, it’s a TOUGH read.

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What kind of person forgets a baby? The wealthy do, it turns out. And the poor, and the middle class. Parents of all ages and ethnicities do it. Mothers are just as likely to do it as fathers. It happens to the chronically absent-minded and to the fanatically organized, to the college-educated and to the marginally literate[…]

Last year it happened three times in one day, the worst day so far in the worst year so far in a phenomenon that gives no sign of abating.

The facts in each case differ a little, but always there is the terrible moment when the parent realizes what he or she has done, often through a phone call from a spouse or caregiver. This is followed by a frantic sprint to the car. What awaits there is the worst thing in the world.

It’s a shockingly common occurrence and actually not due to neglect a lot of the time. The article posits that a large reason is because car seats were mandated to be moved to the back seat.

It's such a painful thing, and the scary truth is that it can happen to anyone.

I'm sure we've all experienced instances of this, in some smaller and insignificant way.

You take a packed lunch to work. Every day for five years you've taken a lunch to work, without fail. Its part of your routine, you don't even have to think about it. Get your wallet, get your keys, lunch out the fridge and into your bag, out the door.

Then one day you open your bag at lunch-time, and it's not there. Why isn't it there, you think? You remember putting it there like always, but then the memories of different days are all the same as each other, and it just blurs into one.

And then you remember. Just as you picked up your wallet and keys, your phone rang. And it's your Dad, who says he just had someone call to say he needs to transfer money to keep it safe, and you're telling him no no no Dad it's just a scam, don't transfer anything! And you have to go or you'll miss the bus, and did I get my lunch, yes yes I put it in my bag like always.

But you didn't put it in your bag. Its still sitting in the fridge at home.

And obviously a lunch is not a baby. But the principle is the same. That frightening realisation that your own brain didn't merely forget, but actually lied to you about what really happened that morning is the same.

And it could have been a baby instead.

Scary.