"Forgetting a child...but..." A girl died when left in the car June 29, 19:48

On the 17th of this month, a two-year-old girl who was left in the car for a long time died in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture.

The father said he told the police, "I forgot to send my child to the nursery."

There was a voice saying, "I too..." in the voice saying, "Is there something like that of forgetting a child?" (Keita Ohno, Reporter, Mito Broadcasting Station / Shinsuke Ayugo, Reporter, Network News Department Momoko Ariyoshi, Daichi Takahashi)

Working from home

"I was so full of work that I forgot to send my child to a nursery school." A

17-month-old girl in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture found a 2-year-old girl hanging out in her car. Explained to the police: The girl was then taken to the hospital, where she was confirmed dead approximately 1 hour later.

The girl is a family of four, with parents and an elementary school sister. My parents worked at the same time, and the father of a company employee had been working from home about this April because of the new coronavirus.

Aside from that, it was a daily routine to send the eldest daughter and the second daughter to the elementary school and the nursery school by car, respectively.

On this day as well, at around 8 am, the father planned to leave the two children in a passenger car, leave his home, send his eldest daughter to elementary school, and send his second daughter to a nursery school.

However, after dropping off his eldest daughter at the elementary school, he forgot to leave his second daughter at a nursery school, returned to his home, parked his car in the parking lot, and seemed to work from home.

“My second daughter was supposed to leave her in a nursery school,”

the father explained to the police, and the second daughter was tired from the car seat at the elementary school parking lot to pick up the children after 3 pm. It seems that he did not realize he had forgotten until he found.

Does not mean that there is no love

On the net, there are many voices saying "I can not believe that I forget my child" "I can not do that", but there are also posts such as "I do not have confidence that I do not do it" "I also have experience" ..

Experts say that in order to prevent similar cases from happening, we need to know the mechanism of the human mind.

Masafumi Usui, a professor of Niigata Seiryo University who specializes in social psychology, said, "The world is angry that "I can't think of it" or "Isn't it a lie?" However, anger and sadness cannot prevent accidents. It is necessary to calmly think about why it happened."

And he explained why people sometimes forget important things.

Usui-san:
For example, even though I never forget the usual way to get home from the station, today I have to stop in front of the post to write a letter. Today I must go to the supermarket to buy milk and go home. It's easy to forget that unusual behavior, and while forgetting doesn't mean you'll forget it completely, humans can't remember when they need it. The moment I open the bag and look at the envelope, I can remember that I forgot to write the letter, but that's what humans remember if I don't have a chance to remember it. is"

On top of that, Usui says that humans sometimes forget important things that they cannot forget.

Usui-san
For example, if you're always in contact with your baby, it's customary to keep thinking about your baby whether you're crying or your diaper is wet. For those who routinely prepare for work and go to the office, they don't have the habit of thinking about their baby while driving, so they can't remember when they came near the nursery. Also, my head doesn't work as usual, for example, when I'm under intense stress or when I'm just thinking about my work. That doesn't mean I have no love for my baby.”

Is it possible to forget a child?

I was able to talk to a woman in her 40s who had actually forgotten her child.

When my second daughter was about 2 years old, I put it on the child seat in the back seat of my car and returned to my apartment. The woman dropped a stroller in its trunk to park the car.

However, he was thinking that he had put the car into the basement of a vertical parking lot.

When the car was almost out of sight, the woman first noticed that the stroller was empty, and when he hurriedly returned the car to the ground, the second daughter looked at it with a strange look.

Woman
"Maybe it was close to panic. I hurriedly switched the parking lever to the other side. When I saw my second daughter, I thought it was safe and safe! I thought the car was underground. So I thought it would have been pitch black and I didn't cry a lot, I think it was just a few seconds, a dozen seconds, but I was really throbbing.''

What happened to women when they took their car to the basement in a multi-storey car park, or when they left their car in various situations, such as when they left the car, and were warned? There was a fear that he might forget something.

Also, according to the woman, the second daughter at that time was so quiet that she often started checking the mirrors of her car to see if she had forgotten to put her in a kindergarten or left it in the parking lot.

Woman
"When I was my eldest daughter, I never forgot my eldest daughter, so even if I heard about the accident caused by forgetting my child, I couldn't believe it! It wasn't an accident, but parental abuse?" I thought, but I really forgot that this could happen to anyone!!” While I'm doing away with “Parents' carelessness”, I don't think an accident will go away.”

I still remember "I was bleeding"

I was also able to talk to another 50-year-old woman in Yokohama, who had forgotten a child 22 years ago.

In order to pick up the eldest son, who was 2 years old, at the nursery school, she took her second son, who was about 3 months old, to the garden with a lanyard.

When I arrived at the garden, before I entered the nursery room where my eldest son was, I dropped my second son into the large diaper table in the next room and welcomed my eldest son, and took him to the toilet. After soothing the eldest son, who was reluctant to sit on the toilet seat, and confirming excretion, I managed to change clothes, hold hands, and leave the nursery with my luggage.

And while talking to his eldest son, he walked about 20 meters from the nursery school and realized that he had forgotten his second son.

Woman
"I felt like I had forgotten something important and I walked thinking "What's that?" and noticed that my second son wasn't there. For a moment, I wondered what was what and became panicked. I didn't even know if I had brought my second son, so I stood there. I desperately tried to remember "Where?", and finally I realized that it was a diaper table.

A woman holding her eldest son back to the nursery school at full speed seems to have slipped out when she sees her second son, who is smiling without crying. After that, when I walked with my child, I used to call my name and give a reply when I moved anywhere, such as when getting on or off a vehicle or in the toilet.

The important thing to remember is

Dr. Toru Nakata, Artificial Intelligence Research Center, AIST, who is familiar with human error and accident prevention measures, points out that “tasting” is important.

Dr. Nakata
"To prevent forgetting, it doesn't make much sense to check if you did "A", "A", "B", "B" manually. Even if you ask someone who thinks you did it, they just say “I did it.” So what I should do is “tasting.” Whether sugar or salt was added when cooking. You don't check it, you taste it and check the result. It's important to check the result in the same way to prevent accidents."

He says baseball and judo members should be imitated.

Dr. Nakata:
Baseball members and judo members stop before they enter the stadium or the dojo, and thank them before entering. It is important to stop once. It's important to make sure you have nothing left in your seat, and to do that, it's best to leave your seat empty when you're not in the car everyday.

However, Nakata points out that people still cannot escape from forgetting things.

Dr. Nakata
"Inspection does not reduce the probability of human error to zero, and if you do not practice it, you will forget to check it easily. For dangerous things, I have to tighten myself especially, and I think it is important to make it a habit to think that it will be my own tomorrow, always happening tomorrow.''

Prevent by repeated leaving technology

A person who can make mistakes no matter how careful he is. However, because the child's life is at stake, it can have serious consequences that an "inadvertent mistake" cannot do.

In order to support such uncertain people, the development of a system in which the car itself notices and leaves the children behind is being developed.

According to French auto parts giant Valeo Japan, a child removal detection system is scheduled to be added to the safety test items of automobiles in Europe from 2022. It seems that you exhibited the system.

A radar installed inside the vehicle detects the presence and movement of living things and informs the driver that the child is still in the vehicle.

Talking to Junya Kotani, who is in charge of the system, there are dozens of fatal accidents due to the leaving of children in the car every year in the American and European car society, and it is obligatory to install an infant leaving detection system in the US It means that the bill has been submitted to Congress.

Mr. Otani said, "When an accident occurs, attention will be paid at that time, but the same damage will occur again. In the United States, there are many accidents in which a child in the passenger seat dies from an airbag, We have enacted a law that allows you to turn off the airbag when you take a seat in the car.Since the number of similar accidents has decreased drastically, some measures such as obligatory installation of a detection system for children left behind are necessary. That's a growing awareness."

"For a moment..."

June 17th. The highest temperature in Tsukuba City was 27.8 degrees, which is about the same as mid July.

The cause of the death of the deceased girl was unknown, but police believe that the girl had been left in the window-closed car for more than 7 hours and died of heat stroke. How much will the temperature inside the car rise in summer? What is the risk of heat stroke?

There is an experiment conducted by JAF = Japan Automobile Federation in the latter half of August. In the scorching sun, we left several cars with their internal temperatures adjusted to 25 degrees for four hours from noon. For cars without sun protection such as sunshades, the temperature inside the car rises to 37.8 degrees in just 10 minutes. The maximum temperature for 4 hours is 52 degrees, and the average temperature is 47 degrees. It is extremely difficult to stay as it is.

Furthermore, even in the case of a car that can be opened by opening the window about 3 cm, the maximum temperature is 45 degrees and the average temperature is 42 degrees. The situation is almost unchanged.

Also, regarding the heat index (WBGT), it can be seen that about 15 minutes after turning off the air conditioner of the car, it rises to the "dangerous" level, which is a life-threatening situation even for a short time.

Takashi Takagi of the JAF Tokyo branch said, "This experiment was conducted in the middle of summer, but you should be careful even during the rainy season. Even if you feel a little cool because of the rain, heat stroke will occur if the humidity is high. If you turn on the engine, you may feel comfortable while driving the car or immediately after parking, but once you turn off the engine, the temperature and humidity immediately rise.” I will.

On top of that, it is NG to leave the child in the car, thinking that "especially the temperature of the child tends to rise. It will be okay for a while" or "Let's not wake up because I am asleep" Be sure to take it with you when you leave the car."