JAMES P. writes: 

Here is yet another horror story in which a  child is left in a car unattended and dies, this time in Italy. Note that the father is a university professor, and thus not stupid. And this in a country with one of the lowest fertility rates on Earth — far below replacement. The full story is below, with some comments of mine.

Toddler dies after being left in hot car after university lecturer dad forgets to drop her off at playgroup

By Nick Pisa

Doctors at Ancona’s Salesi pediatric hospital on the Adriatic coast declared 22-month-old Elena Petrizzi brain dead on Saturday, three days after her father Lucio, 45,went to his teaching job, leaving the child in the car.

He is now facing a manslaughter charge.

Organs from the girl, who has only been identified as Elena, were sent to hospitals in Bergamo, Turin and Rome Sunday. Italian news reports said the heart and liver were transplanted in two children, while the kidneys were still being checked.

The girl’s mother, who is eight months’ pregnant, says what happened to the father could happen to anyone. [JP: So what was she doing? Why wasn’t the baby at home with her?]

Today doctors revealed that Elena had died after a three-day battle for life and that her heart, liver and kidneys had been removed and donated to four children.

The toddler had been left in the family’s four by four in a car park at the University of Teramo where Lucio is a lecturer in veterinary sciences as temperatures soared to 30’c.

She was discovered unconscious and badly dehydrated by Lucio who frantically tried to revive her before calling paramedics who rushed her by ambulance to a specialist children’s ward in nearby Ancona.

Doctors battled to save her life but they were unable to do so despite an operation reduce a massive brain swelling brought on by the high temperature in the car.

Details of the organ transplants were revealed by Dr Francesca De Pace from the hospital in Ancona who said: ‘There is always a high demand for children’s organs.

‘The gesture of these heartbroken parents must be admired because through the death of their child, new life is born, new hope is given. It is an act to be admired, maybe an act to help them overcome this tragedy.’

Doctors said Elena’s heart had been donated to child in Bergamo, her liver to one in Turin while her kidneys had gone to two patients in Rome.

Police have questioned Lucio who told them he was convinced he had dropped his daughter off at her playgroup before heading to work at the university and had even told them:’I’d give my life to save her.’

During questioning he told them:’I just don’t know what happened. I was convinced I had dropped her off. I locked the car and went to work – it’s as if someone pulled the plug out of my brain.’ [JP: Ever have that experience of driving somewhere on “autopilot,” and not remembering much about the drive when you get there? That’s what’s happening here.]

University researcher Chiara Sciarrini, 38, Elena’s mother who is pregnant defended her husband, and said:’He is not to blame. He is always so busy rushing here there and everywhere. [JP: He’s not to blame??? Who is to blame — the baby???]

‘He was always busy himself with me and Elena. He is not guilty of anything. He is an exemplary father.’ [JP: Not the example I want to set, that’s for sure.]

An autopsy will now be carried out on Elena and the case is being investigated by prosecutors in Teramo.

                                              — Comments —

Fred Owens writes:

This happened in Boston twenty years ago. I saved the newspaper clipping. A young father set his infant child on the roof of his car in a baby seat. He did that while loading his groceries into the car. He then forgot that the baby was on the roof of the car and drove off.

He got onto the Massachusetts Turnpike and up to highway speed. The baby, still secured in its chair, flew off the roof of the car and landed, miraculously upright, on the lane of the turnpike. Cars were speeding by, avoiding the obstacle, but not realizing it was a live, breathing child.

A woman (why was it a woman?) sensed something unusual in this object and pulled over to the side of the road. Realizing it was a baby, she waved down the cars, went out into the road, and rescued child, who was in uninjured.

This was a miracle, and it made front page news in Boston the next day.

I submit that it was no coincidence that it was a man who left his baby on the roof of the car and it was a woman who somehow sensed that a baby was lying in the road.

Laura writes:

This phenonemon of distracted parents leaving babies in cars involves both women and men. In Puerto Rico recently, as reported here, a female doctor left her baby in a car and the child died.

A reader writes:

 It is ironic that people put the car seat in the back of the car and facing backwards, in order to save the child’s life in case of an accident. Out-of-sight, out-of-mind. I wonder how many children died from being in the front of the car as opposed to the back. 

Maybe some bright person will develop an alarm system for when a child’s carseat is occupied after the driver’s seat has been emptied for so many seconds.

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