Saturday, May 05, 2007

The Tragedy of Backovers

I just read Stacey's post and wanted to pass it on. I couldnt imagine this really happening and its frightening that in the U.S. 2 children would die every week because of being accidentally backed over by most probably their own parent. Stacey survived a similar accident, but many children and family arent so lucky. News such as this is hard to believe.

And here's an excerpt from the Today Show article:
It’s the larger vehicles, the SUV’s, minivans and the pickups that have the biggest blind zones. The type of vehicles so many families now use. Here’s the typical scenario: a parent says goodbye to their child, gets in the car, checks the mirrors and takes off. The child wanting to say good bye one last time runs after the car and the parent can’t see the child. They have actually named this as “the bye, bye syndrome.” Kids and Cars, a non –profit organization, has been tracking deaths and injuries related to backovers. They say every week 2 children die from backovers.

6 comments:

  1. My ex-husband's aunt lost her 2 yr daughter in the 30s from this "bye bye" syndrome. They lived on the dairy farm, the father was backing out with the load of milk bottles and the little girl ran out. No one noticed her body for some time. The mother and the grandmother were chatting in the house and didn't realize Jewel had slipped out of the house.

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  2. That is so horrible Cathy, I cannot imagine the grief.

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  3. That is scary. I have heard about that on the news at least once before. And one time, (this wasn't a 'backover' incident, but...) the mother thought the father brought the baby in the house. He thought she did... well no one did, and the baby died of heat inside the car. :(( It's really sad sometimes parents are negligent and do things like that. (Not all the time, but in the case of leaving the baby in the car...)

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  4. I have watched an episode in Oprah where the father unfortunately forgot the baby in the car while he was at the office, and was so shocked and horrified when he realized it was too late.
    And I also have a nephew-in-law who lost a four-year-old son (this happened more than 10 years ago), right in their own car parked in their garage, when (no one knew he was able to get inside), and found out too late also. It was so devastating for the family...

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  5. thank you for helping make more people aware of this!
    *hugs*

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