50 American children burned to death last year, left in their parents’ car. This “forgotten baby syndrome” can happen to anyone, according to Professor David Diamond’s theory.
It’s a sad record. In 2018, more than 50 American children died of heat, forgotten in their parents’ car. Every year in France, the press relays similar cases, even if the authorities do not keep official statistics.
According to the theory According to David Diamond, professor of psychology at the University of Florida, such dramas occur when the subconscious neural system dominates the conscious neural system. In other words, the part of the brain that handles routine takes precedence over the part that handles immediacy. For example, some parents who found their dead baby in their car were actually driving to pick them up from daycare.
He forgets to leave the little girl with the nanny
Thierry Bas, deputy prosecutor in Chalon-sur-Saône, recount thus the circumstances of the tragic death of a French girl: “the father, like every morning, brings his children, his 5 year old little boy and his 3 year old little girl. He drops off his boy at the drop-in center and forgets to leave the little girl with the nanny. He goes to work, leaves his car in a sunny parking lot. At the end of his working day, at 4:30 p.m., he gets back in his car, goes back to the drop-in center to pick up his boy and, opening the door to position his boy in the back seat, realizes that his daughter is in bad shape. point. He immediately goes to the fire station where the little girl cannot be revived. His state of shock is such that we could not question him”.
This mechanism, defined as “the forgotten baby syndrome”, can be aggravated by external factors, such as stress, fatigue or an unexpected event. “The brain memory system that breaks down when people forget their children in cars is the same one that makes us forget to turn off the headlights when we arrive at our destination,” says David Diamond. “Just as automakers have built-in systems that turn off the headlights if you forget, we need to have built-in systems that detect a child left in a car,” he adds, thus defending the many American parents. convicted of manslaughter.
The car turns into a death trap in just 10 minutes
When it is hot, the heat of the car increases very quickly. Even with an outside temperature of 15-20°C, the interior of the vehicle can rise above 45°C in less than thirty minutes. With an outside temperature of 26°C, the car turns into a death trap in just 10 minutes.
“Young children are the most vulnerable because their body temperature can rise five times faster than that of an adult,” adds pediatrician Leticia Manning Ryan. “When a child’s internal temperature reaches 40 degrees Celsius, important organs begin to shut down, and if the temperature reaches 41.7 degrees the child may die,” she concludes.
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