Children and animals being left in hot cars whether accidentally or on purpose while making just a “short stop” is making the news again especially as this heat wave smothers the country. So I am going to share this memory from the past and hope it saves a life…
Years ago, a member of my military unit forgot that he was supposed to drop his small child off at the day care center on the way to work… The child apparently fell asleep and the sergeant forgot and was preoccupied with thoughts of work, parked his car and went inside… Luckily someone else walking through the parking lot noticed the child and the child did not suffer any ill effects.
At the time, I had two personnel who worked for me who also drove their kids to day care on the way to work… After a bit of brainstorming (I can’t say how original my idea was…) but I went down to the exchange and bought two large “Teddy Bears” and gave one to each of my folks… And to make an impression I wrote orders directing them to always carry that bear in their car and if there was no child in the car seat, the bear got strapped in, but when the child occupied the car seat, the bear got strapped into the passenger side… This way, with the bear riding “Shotgun,” it acted as a reminder there is a child in the car seat…
My commander agreed that I had the authority to issue these orders to my personnel and they had to follow them as long as they were driving on base, but he took that idea and we used unit funds to buy Teddy Bears for all the personnel in the unit who had children in car seats… He was especially appreciative of this idea since he had to brief the base commander on the incident and what corrective action was taken to prevent it from occurring again… Unfortunately, in spite of the fact that the base commander thought that was a great idea, he did not authorize base funds to buy bears for all eligible personnel on base…
In the subsequent years (I served over 30-years…) I was able to get the Unit’s Booster clubs to buy the bears…
Now, if you are still with me and you have children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, or just friends with children, think about buying some Teddy Bears for them and you might just save a life!
