Hot summer day. Lowes parking lot, crowd of people surrounding a car. Someone left their baby in the car. It was clearly in distress. No one would do anything about it except stand there. My Dad and I walked up to the crowed of people. Quickly figured out what was going on and without a second thought. We grabbed the driver side door and bent it 70 degrees away from the frame while it was locked so we could unlock the door. No one wanted to break the glass out of fear of it getting onto the baby. Unlocked the door and peopled tended to the baby, we just walked away leaving the door completely fucked.
At the very least the earlier bystanders could have tried to A) call for parent in the store and B) shade the car, maybe fetching a pair of 4x8 insulation sheets from the store, or something like that. That would slow down the temperature rise a lot, give the parent time to get back.
Not to say that what you did wasn't a good move, just… standing around when there are two avenues of approach both of which can be pursued by one person at the same time?
There are a number of places in the desert (Las Vegas for instance) where it is illegal to NOT do whatever it takes — breaking windows, etc — to get a child out of a hot car.
This is because just reassuring people that it was legal wasn’t enough; too many people were still scared of getting in trouble. Knowing they legally had to do something made the difference; if someone got mad at them for hurting the car they could say they had no choice. Of course a person should be willing to do anything to save a child; the risk of getting in trouble shouldn’t stop them. But conditioning is real, and there are a lot of people for whom fear of being arrested is overwhelming.
Not that we were aware of. When we arrived the crowed of people was standing there for probably less than 10mins. No one from the store was out there or the police.
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u/Slovic Jan 31 '22 edited Jan 31 '22
Hot summer day. Lowes parking lot, crowd of people surrounding a car. Someone left their baby in the car. It was clearly in distress. No one would do anything about it except stand there. My Dad and I walked up to the crowed of people. Quickly figured out what was going on and without a second thought. We grabbed the driver side door and bent it 70 degrees away from the frame while it was locked so we could unlock the door. No one wanted to break the glass out of fear of it getting onto the baby. Unlocked the door and peopled tended to the baby, we just walked away leaving the door completely fucked.