2-year-old child died after being left in the car for 9,5 hours by grandmother in Okayama

25 comments

1. …… What absolute shit is this?

   How the HELL do you “Forget” a Child in your car FOR over 9 HOURS???

2. It actually happens a lot. People go on autopilot in the morning and if dropping a child off at daycare isn’t part of your usual routine then it’s easy to forget. I’m sure the grandmother is utterly devastated.

3. My god. What is going on !!!! ….

4. saw this during prime time news on tv

   grandpa is planning to sue the daycare because they failed to notify the absence

5. I was really judgmental about this stuff until I had a baby. My wife went inside the convenience store to use the restroom, and then my cousin came over to talk to me. He mentioned something inside, and I got up and followed him in, forgetting that I had a baby sleeping in the back seat.

   Luckily, my wife came out of the bathroom a minute later and asked me where the baby was, and the weather wasn’t warm.

   Still, it was a real wakeup call for me, and it showed me exactly the kind of mental slip that can lead to this situation. I feel horrible for the victim and its family, and I also feel horrible for the grandmother, because she must be absolutely shattered from what happened.

6. I drive a pickup truck with a single bench seat, no back seat (they exist in Japan), and this is honestly one of the things I thought about when I bought it.

   Can’t forget your kids (probably) if they’re right beside you.

   I can’t imagine myself forgetting a baby in the car, but I’m sure these people couldn’t imagine that either and are devastated.

7. These avoidable accidents are so sad! A lot of vehicles in japan have tinted rear windows (including mine) which means I can’t see what’s in the rear seats which makes it fairly easy to forget a sleeping or quiet child in the rear seat.

8. This is devastating. It can happen to anyone, that’s the first thing everyone should understand. Thinking “this would bever happen to me” is the main reason it happens. They sell safety devices like alarms that go under the seat, detect the child’s weight, and beep if forget to take them out or send a notification to your phone. Some even have cameras. I’ve also seen articles that recommend leaving your purse or phone next to the car seat, so you have to open the back door to get it and forces you to see the baby. It’s also so easy to put a mirror in the back so you can check if the kid is there or not. Prevention and awareness is so important.

9. I am sure there will be IoT to sense there is a living being in the car for extended period of time at high temperatures and alert owners to prevent such tragedy from happening again

10. There is no excuse …. Smh

11. I wonder why the day care didn’t call when they never showed up. Not blaming them for this, but that seems unusual

12. Not sure why people defending this grandmother. 9 hours? I mean what was she? Doing a 9-5 office job? Didn’t think to feed the kid during the office job? Come on.

13. You think this won’t happen to you, but it can.
    I’ve heard to put your phone, keys, wallet, shoes in the back next to your kid, as then there’s no chance of forgetting about them.
    I always remember to bring nappies for my son when going out, except for one time I was in a rush and didn’t.
    So people think that they’ll always remember, but humans just aren’t perfect.
    Absolute worst thing to forget, I could never forgive myself. I feel sorry for any family that goes through this.

14. drop it like it’s hoooot, drop it like it’s hoooot,

15. This is a tragedy, I have two kids and this broke my heart, but I can see how this happened. People are busy, they do something outside their usual routine, and I imagine a lot of them are just not sleeping properly due to the heat.

    Those who are judging the grandmother, what do you think? She did it on purpose? She made a mistake, a horrific, unbelievably terrible but understandable mistake. She now has to spend the rest of her life knowing she’s killed her grandchild in one of the worst ways possible ; no amount of punishment will ever make her feel worse.

    More needs to be done, a simple device to communicate that a child is in the car. An alarm that sounds when the engine is turned off. Etc better communication with daycare, a campaign to highlight this issue. All of these would be a step in the right direction.

16. Idea: if my car can incessantly beep at me to make a front seat passenger put on their seatbelt, why can’t it beep if there is a weight (car seat, person, etc) on the back seats when I open the driver door?? Technology seems to exist, and would honestly annoy me, but annoying is worthwhile to maybe prevent something like this…

17. How do you leave someone for 9.5 hours in a car? That’s a whole day.

18. I am very paranoid with my child but I realized caregiver fatigue, and routine can bring people’s guards down.

    The little boy’s full name is so similar to that of my son’s I cried when I saw it on the news the other day. The pain is so visceral and I don’t even know the family. My son is 17 months old now and I can’t imagine…

19. These news stories make me very glad that my daughters daycare always calls if we do not drop her off as usual – it’s only happened 2 times that we didn’t notify them that she was not coming (1 time because we thought the daycare was closed!!) but it brings me so much peace of mind that they called us.

    Not that I think this would happen to us but damn…what if? It really should be protocol for the daycare, even though I don’t necessarily “blame” them…

20. I was surprised to see she is only 53 years old. Due to the unfortunate nature of this situation, I was expecting her to be a lot older and that dementia might’ve been the cause of her forgetting her own grandson was in the car.

    But I’ve seen the other posts regarding that “routine memory” study, and that makes a lot of sense to me too.

    It’s very saddening that this happened at all. My thoughts go out to Haruto and his family during this time of grieving.

21. WTF people?

22. imo its the grandma at fault here…and not the kindergarten

23. Bruh who does that

24. Why this keep happening ?

25. Did young children die in hot cars as often when cars had manual rolldown windows? I feel that before automatic windows, a toddler could have managed to roll down the window a crack and made enough noise to attract attention. Of course, a baby would still be doomed..