Irresponsibly Careless Caregivers

Sometimes it's hard to figure what people use for brains. Of course that's just a facetious little statement. The honest truth is that people too often lack common sense. Obviously some people are aware, but all too many simply are not. They seem completely oblivious to exposure to situations that may prove unsettling at best, downright dangerous and life-threatening in the worst-case scenario.

And as far as small children and even domestic pets are concerned, the worst-case scenario on a really hot, sunny day is the danger of suffocation and heat stroke when left unattended in a parked vehicle. How something this obvious could escape the notice and the concerned mind of someone who presumably has a care for infants and for pets, is beyond understanding.

But invariably it will happen; a passerby notices a child struggling in the car seat of a locked vehicle for air, and the infant is experiencing trouble breathing. Alarm sets in, the passerby attempts to open the car door, to reach the child, but it is locked. A quick 911 call is made, or they enter a nearby store to report the problem, and police arrive.

An ambulance is dispatched and paramedics make an attempt at assessing the rescued child's vital signs. On occasion there are none, and the paramedics struggle to revive the child, and rush it, horns blaring, to the nearest hospital emergency room. The child survives, and sometimes it does not.

The caregivers, perhaps parents, are devastated, full of grief and guilt, hardly knowing where to turn for comfort. They make an effort to explain themselves; they were only gone for a moment, there was something that had to be attended to, just dropped by a shop for a quick look around, who might have imagined that the heat would be so deadly? Well, just about anyone but they.

Sometimes charges of child abandonment or failing to provide for the necessities of life are laid against the parent. Including parents who have parked in a casino lot, and gone in to play a few games of chance, and simply lost track of time, while their child was left alone in that parked car, to survive ... or not.

Pair that with the case worker with Family and Children Services, working for Renfrew County, driving with two children in her car, under the influence of alcohol. A traffic complaint was received by the OPP in the early afternoon of someone driving erratically. She was administered a breathalyzer test.

The woman, 32 years of age, charged with driving with a blood-alcohol level surpassing the legal limit. Not a thought for her responsibility, driving under the influence of alcohol with two young children in her care? That she was held to be a responsible adult, deserving of employment with Family and Children Services, demolished by this act of errant stupidity.

No word in the paper whether the two children were wards of the Crown, or whether they were Cynthia Racine's own two children. Either way, the children were placed in a potentially dangerous situation by the action of someone who most certainly should have known better than to flout the law and common sense, and imperil the safety of minors.

Just as the baby that was left unattended at a shopping complex at Trim and Innes roads just after the noon hour in 30-degree-Celsius heat, when in fact there was an extreme heat alert out was placed in danger of losing its life.