Editorial: How quickly tragedy hits

Friday, Aug. 26, 2005 | 4:49 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

August 27-28, 2005

One of the most dreaded of all 911 calls was made again Thursday. It was from a family needing an ambulance for their 17-month-old daughter, who had been left unattended in the family car long enough to have slipped from consciousness. The girl, named Briana, was barely breathing when her family found her still strapped in her car seat. It was 99 degrees outside, and Metro Police are estimating that the temperature rose to 137 degrees inside the car. Briana was admitted to Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center in critical condition.

Since 2001 seven Southern Nevada children have died from the heat after being left alone in cars for extended periods of time. The potential for even more such horrible deaths continues to be great. This year police have responded to 62 incidences of children being left alone in cars, according to Lisa Teele, supervisor of Metro's Abuse and Neglect Detail.

The image of a helpless child, alone in a car, slowly having its life sapped away by suffocating heat, is almost too much to bear. In most all of these cases, here and around the country, the parents have been found to be caring people whose emotional devastation afterward is genuine. Neighbors of Briana, for example, had high praise for her family, calling them "very, very nice ... good people ... very respected ... hard working."

Teofilo Rodriguez, Briana's father, apparently forgot the child was in the car after he had driven to a friend's house, according to reports Friday. Neighbors said that just hours earlier, he had been helping Briana walk in the front yard of their northeast Las Vegas home. Briana's mother, Maria, was weeping with joy while watching the toddler take some of her first steps, neighbors said. How quickly tragedy can strike.

Police say the case will be reviewed by the district attorney's office, to determine if any charges should be filed. The 2005 Legislature, in response to the growing numbers of children being left alone in cars, attached penalties to such incidences even when they are unintentional. That law takes effect Oct. 1. Any penalty the state could assess, however, could never begin to match the true penalty -- the grief felt by good parents.

As for the parents who intentionally leave their children alone in cars while they shop, gamble or even dash inside to pay for gas, we hope they are spotted and reported to police. They obviously have a lesson to learn. And for parents who would never dream of doing that, we hope they devise a system to remind themselves of their children, so they will never accidentally cause a tragedy to happen. Some parents leave a large toy in the passenger's seat, some make it a habit to physically touch each seat in the car before walking away, others load a cassette tape of their children's voices and turn up the volume. Whatever it takes for parents to remember their children while driving, we hope they do it. It's just maddening to think of how preventable these deaths are.