OT - Tragic story connected to my old town

[JonInMiddleGA]

First, here's the link to the latest version of the story from the local TV station
http://www.13wmaz.com/news/local_story.aspx?storyid=40960

I'd really like to cry at the stupidity of all this. It's not anything out of the ordinary sad to say, an infant dies after being left in a car all day in the heat.
I've lost track of how many stories like this I've seen or read in the past few years. Thing is, this time I know the family.

Not well, but well enough I guess. The 20 year old mother I remember running into a few times as she grew up in Monticello. Not a bad kid, not a great kid, kind of an average amounts of ups & downs I guess you could say. I mostly knew her by name as she was a classmate of some other teens we knew better. Her mother (i.e. the baby's grandmother) we knew better, either from working with her from time to time in a city hall job she held for several years or, later, from being the person who did my wife's nails. Heck, my wife still drives an hour to get her to do them even after we moved.

Nothing really odd about the circumstances of the baby either. Kid goes off to college a few hours from old, sows a wild oat too many, and comes home pregnant. She wants to keep the baby, neither side wanted to get married, the grandmother agrees to help raise the baby. The young mother tries to get her act together, was working & supporting herself & the baby as far as I knew (presumably with some help from her own mother). Not a perfect situation naturally, but again, not one that's all that unusual either anymore.

And then I get a phone call from a friend back in Monticello tonight telling me about this, and a few hours later the news picks up the details.

Please don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting or soliciting any measure of pity for the culprit in the case. Hell, at the moment I'd probably like to slap her idiotic ass from here to hell & back to be honest about it. But even beyond the anger that a parent might normally feel about such an absolutely senseless death, the whole thing just makes me very sad. Almost all of that sadness relates to the baby & it's suffering, but also to some extent to the grandmother as well. From anything I know about the situation, she had tried to do the best she realistically could for her daughter & grandaughter given the circumstances that set all this in motion.

Aw crap, I'm probably starting to ramble. It was just a crappy day around here today for several reasons, from disappointments on the professional front to (apparently at least) having our curbside trash container stolen. But then I see this & realize I ain't got no problems worth bitching about, not in comparison to this. But I'm having a tough time shaking the sadness of the whole deal, thought it might help to talk it out a little this way.

[King of New York]

Someday, someone should invent some sort of safety device that prevents parents from accidentally leaving their infant in the car. I'm not sure how it would work, but the need is certainly there.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Someday, someone should invent some sort of safety device that prevents parents from accidentally forgetting how to be a good parent. I'm not sure how it would work, but the need is certainly there.

Fixed.

[Radii]

That sucks, Jon :( You do see these stories all too often, but its different when its someone you know, or even know of.

[BrianD]

The story was a little confusing, but was she claiming that the person who picked up her kid from daycare brought the kid to her car and left him there?

[Honolulu_Blue]

The story was a little confusing, but was she claiming that the person who picked up her kid from daycare brought the kid to her car and left him there?

I agree. It was terribly confusing.

It's really tragic. I feel for the entire family, it must be incredibly rough. I just don't get it though. I wont even leave my dog in the care for 5 minutes if it's above, say, 80 degrees outside. I can't imagine the thought process (or lack there of) that someone would have to go through when they leave a baby in the car in weather like that.

[JonInMiddleGA]

The story was a little confusing, but was she claiming that the person who picked up her kid from daycare brought the kid to her car and left him there?

She got a phone call from the person who usually picks the baby up from daycare saying "where's the baby". The mother hung up & then ran to the parking lot at her job & made the awful discovery.

[BrianD]

She got a phone call from the person who usually picks the baby up from daycare saying "where's the baby". The mother hung up & then ran to the parking lot at her job & made the awful discovery.

:eek: I totally missed that in the story. She forgot to drop off the kid and didn't notice? That is tragic. I'd comment that something like this shouldn't be possible to forget, but with all the things in my life that I forget...I could see myself being this person...scary as that is.

[st.cronin]

I'm not sure I see how its possible to forget something like that. I'm pretty absent-minded, I lose my keys all the time, and I often forget to do things like turn off the stove or set my alarm - but, that's on a totally different level.

[thealmighty]

I'm not sure I see how its possible to forget something like that. I'm pretty absent-minded, I lose my keys all the time, and I often forget to do things like turn off the stove or set my alarm - but, that's on a totally different level.

Agree. There is NO WAY I could forget that I hadn't dropped of my child somewhere, or that I had her in the car, period.

[Wolfpack]

Not necessarily to justify, but if the baby's asleep and you've got a lot on your mind, you can just do things on auto-pilot and not even think about what is still in the back of the car.

Fortunately, I don't have to worry about this much as I have a three-year-old noisemaker in addition to our recently minted toddler, so it's a non-issue for us.

[JonInMiddleGA]

http://themonticellonews.com/link.asp?smenu=1&twindow=&sdetail=4431&mad=&wpage=1&skeyword=&sidate=

Holly Hammonds of Monticello plead guilty to the charge of “involuntary manslaughter’ in a Bibb County court Monday morning.

Miss Hammonds, 20, was originally charged with felony murder and cruelty to children after inadvertently leaving her baby in the car in the parking lot where she worked at Coliseum Medical Center on July 12.

Miss Hammonds was sentenced to serve seven years probation and a year at The Potter’s House, a Christian counseling center near Barnesville, instead of a year in a detention center. She was also ordered to do 150 hours of community service.

Miss Hammonds left her infant daughter, Taryn, in her car seat in the back seat of Miss Hammonds car when she went to work shortly before noon last July. When her friend who was to pick up Taryn from day care called and said she was not there, Miss Hammonds initially reacted that someone had kidnapped the child.

She ran out the building to her car, and when she arrived found her lifeless baby where she had left her.

According to published reports, a minister close to Miss Hammonds family suggested she seek help at The Potters House, and she started attending sessions at the center soon after the baby’s death. Time already spent there will count towards Miss Hammonds’ sentence.

[flere-imsaho]

Such a sad story. Still, "involuntary manslaughter" does seem to be the correct judgement, given what we know.

[I]Holly Hammonds of Monticello plead guilty to the charge of “involuntary manslaughter’ in a Bibb County court Monday morning.

I'm pretty sure that should be "pled guilty", no?

[JonInMiddleGA]

I'm pretty sure that should be "pled guilty", no?

Proofreading isn't exactly a strong suit there unfortunately.

[RomaGoth]

I had never seen this thread prior to today, but it almost made me cry. Nothing gets me going more than stuff involving children. Whether it be murder, pornography, forgetting a child in a car, these things all drive me crazy. I would do ANYTHING for my kids, and the thought of something happening to them is almost too much to comprehend. This is another sad story in our society that goes largely unnoticed except in local media outlets. :(

[Subby]

Someday, someone should invent some sort of safety device that prevents parents from accidentally leaving their infant in the car. I'm not sure how it would work, but the need is certainly there.
They already did - it's called Norplant.

[PilotMan]

Personally, I don't think that she should have been charged with any crime at all. She is already paying the ultimate price for her mistake, what sense does it make to punish her more. This same thing happend here this summer, and despite the news trying really hard to make out the mom to be negligent, she wasn't charged with anything, although she did lose her job as an assitant principle of a local elementary school.

[RomaGoth]

Personally, I don't think that she should have been charged with any crime at all. She is already paying the ultimate price for her mistake, what sense does it make to punish her more. This same thing happend here this summer, and despite the news trying really hard to make out the mom to be negligent, she wasn't charged with anything, although she did lose her job as an assitant principle of a local elementary school.

But at the same time, these people have to be made accountable. Unfortunately, we never really know which parents are the ones that don't give a crap about their kids and those that just made a really awful mistake.

[CU Tiger]

This is so sad, on so many levels.

These stories always scare me. When my son was 6 or 7 months old I was taking him to daycare before I went to work. At the time I was 22 and the regional manger for a fortune 100 company. I was over my head, but doing a damn good job of faking it. Stress was a word we lived with. I was working 100+ hours per week and occaisonally even sleeping at the office to get caught up. Anyway this particular morning I left home woth my son and drove the hour and fifteen minutes to work and only when I got out and reached into the backseat for my briefcase did I remember he was there. As soon as we pulled out of the drive that morning the phone rang with a "major" fire for me to put out and it never stopped, my mind ran 100 different directions and it chills me to thee bone thinking what if my hand had grabbed the briefcase instead of his foot.....

[RomaGoth]

This is so sad, on so many levels.

These stories always scare me. When my son was 6 or 7 months old I was taking him to daycare before I went to work. At the time I was 22 and the regional manger for a fortune 100 company. I was over my head, but doing a damn good job of faking it. Stress was a word we lived with. I was working 100+ hours per week and occaisonally even sleeping at the office to get caught up. Anyway this particular morning I left home woth my son and drove the hour and fifteen minutes to work and only when I got out and reached into the backseat for my briefcase did I remember he was there. As soon as we pulled out of the drive that morning the phone rang with a "major" fire for me to put out and it never stopped, my mind ran 100 different directions and it chills me to thee bone thinking what if my hand had grabbed the briefcase instead of his foot.....

Wow. That takes courage to admit something like this happened. It is too bad that we get so caught up in other things and forget about the children sometimes. Makes me even more glad that my wife stays home with our 2 youngest ones.....

[molson]

Legally, the tougher question for me comes when someone leaves their kid in a car and everything's fine.

I get 7-8 cases like that a year at my job - what should happen to those people? The typical resolution has become dismissal upon completion of a parenting class. But the only difference between them and the woman in this case is bad luck.