Baby’s death raises question: How?

Emily Richmond and Jace Radke

Monday, July 2, 2001 | 10:48 a.m.

It's a question commonly asked whenever the latest tragedy is reported: How can a parent forget that a child is still inside the car?

If parents were surveyed on whether children should ever be left alone in a car, probably 99 percent would answer "never," Paul Shapiro, assistant professor of sociology at UNLV, said. But, he notes, there's a difference between running into the bank for "just a minute" and forgetting a child for two, three or even five hours.

"It's mind-boggling," Shapiro said. "And it's a phenomenon that rarely happens, even though it's happened twice here in six weeks."

The latest death occurred Friday, when a 6-month-old boy was left inside a car for more than five hours at the parking lot of his parents' employer.

The Clark County district attorney's office will determine whether criminal charges will be filed.

The baby was discovered by his mother about 1:15 p.m. Friday in the parking lot of URS Corp., an engineering firm near Warm Springs Road and Interstate 215, still strapped into his rear-facing child seat.

The mother reportedly realized the baby was in the car when she called the child-care center to check on him. Police said the parents forgot to drop the boy off on their way to work, usually about 8 a.m.

The parents, whose names have not been released, told police that they usually drop the baby off before taking another child, a 4-year-old, to a separate day-care center. On Friday they dropped off the 4-year-old, then went to work, police said.

The high temperature Friday was 108, according to a National Weather Service spokesman.

Nevada's summer heat can turn parked cars into virtual ovens, Dale Carrison, director of University Medical Center's emergency room, said. Temperatures inside parked cars can be as much as 30 or 40 degrees higher than outdoor readings, Carrison said.

Workers at URS, 7115 Amigo St., performed CPR on the baby but couldn't revive him.

The baby's death marked the third such incident in the Las Vegas Valley this year.

On May 6 Michael Esposito, 5, was reportedly playing hide-and-seek in a dirt lot behind the stands at one of the tracks at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The boy apparently hid in the trunk of his mother's car and was trapped inside for about 30 minutes. Esposito died after being hospitalized for several days.

Nine-month-old Dallas Nelson on May 22 was accidentally left for about two hours in a sport utility, which was parked in the driveway of a North Las Vegas home. He died two days later.

Prosecutors did not press charges against Nelson's mother after an investigation showed that a series of events resulted in the sleeping baby mistakenly being left in the SUV.

In 1996 in a similar case, a woman forgot to drop her 3-month-old baby at a child-care center on her way to work. The baby fell asleep, the woman drove to work and left the baby inside the car. The mother later drove a co-worker to lunch but didn't notice the infant until she got in the car to return to work.

Charges were not filed and the case was ruled a tragic accident.

When a parent forgets a child, the results are tragic, dramatic and highly publicized, Shapiro said. Although it's difficult to point to one underlying cause, the reaction of the general public is worth noting, he said.

"What's amazing is people seem to have a forgiving type of response," Shapiro said in an interview this morning. "Which is remarkable, given the nature of the crime."

The National Safe Kids Campaign has a brochure of tips reminding parents that kids children should never be left in vehicles. The campaign also gave Nevada a D grade when it came to the state's legislation designed to protect children in cars.

The Safe Kids coalition has offices in Reno and Las Vegas and offers low-cost car seats to qualified families.

General Motors, the main sponsor of the coalition, is working on a new heat-detecting sensor that would sound a warning beep if a person is accidentally left in the car.