A tragic miscommunication:
Kozel, a pediatrician at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, apparently had thought her husband knew to take the baby to the on-site day care; the father didn’t see the baby in the back seat and thought he was simply parking an empty car.
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Unbelievable and tragic. All I know is that when I leave my child I ALWAYS say goodbye/give a kiss or if asleep at least check on the child/inform spouse of status of milk/diaper bag/etc. And we all know a story or two about working parents who have an abusive nanny/au pair, so that is not necessarily the answer. I imagine it will be very difficult for this doctor to work as a pediatrician (or be a physician at all if there is a felony judgment).
How did the father not know that the baby was in the back seat? Sounds weird to me.
What a sad story.
Nothing will happen to the woman. She is, after all, a physician and will be found blameless. Such as the American legal system.
Part of me understand this and part of me doesn’t. I thinkthe thing I can’t get over is how the parents didn’t communicate as to where the baby was. My kids are 2 and 3 and my wife and I always know where they are. Very tragic and sad.
Dominic A. Carone, Ph.D.
Founder and Webmaster of MedFriendly.com and The MedFriendly blog.
I have always worried about criminalizing these tragedies as it seems to me that it could happen to anyone. Spouses don’t communicate. People get distracted or fall into behavioral routines.
My wife locked our infant son in the car accidentally on a hot day once when she jump out to get gas leaving the keys in the car. This was 20 years ago before electronic locks. While a helpful man broke into the car for her, a woman watched a kid for signs of overheating, and a policeman stood ready to break the window if there was a dangerous delay in getting the door open.
What was not at all helpful was the other woman on the scene who ranted, raved, and berated my wife while all that was going on, reducing her to a state of tearful hysteria.
The car door was opened within minutes and the baby didn’t overheat.
“Unlike some day-care centers that call parents if a child fails to show up by a certain time, the day-care centers for hospital workers don’t have such a policy.”
Sounds like fertile ground for a personal injury attorney to now blame the day care center for this tragedy. But no…that would never happen…
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