Dad shares a heartbreaking warning to all parents after his toddler was left in hot car all day.
Sadly a three-year-old boy has died after his father left him inside the family car for six hours after forgetting he was there.
Daily Telegraph reports, the dad from Glenfield, Western Sydney, is totally devastated. He had put his two sons aged 3 and 6, inside the family’s Toyota Corolla before dropping his eldest son off at school last week.
He would usually then drop little 3 year old, Arikh off at daycare. However, since the little boy was asleep in the back of the car, he simply totally forgot to drop him off.
Temperatures reached 35 in Sydney that day.
Newaz Hasan said he usually chatted with his little boy as they made their way to daycare, but because he was sound asleep he was unable to chat with him and didn’t think anymore of it.
‘I would normally talk to my son on the way to daycare, you know, we would chat… but because he was asleep this day, the car was silent,’ Mr Hasan told The Daily Telegraph.
‘I think that silence just made me forget he was there.’
He arrived home to work for several hours, and he didn’t notice little Arikh until he got back to the car to collect his older son from school.
The father said he returned to the shops to get his older son, and when he saw Arikh inside the car, he immediately rushed him to a nearby shop to try and revive him.
“I drove again and parked outside the shops and I walked up to get my older son…When I came back and I opened the back door to put my boy in, then I saw him,” the father said.
Unfortunately, the little boy died despite the father’s attempts to save him.
A witness at the scene told Daily Mail the father kept repeating, ‘I just forgot, I just forgot’
Dad’s heartbreaking warning after toddler left in hot car
Mr Hasan urged other parents to always be more vigilant about their kids’ safety.
“Even talking about it now, I still don’t really know how it happened. There was nothing on my mind, I wasn’t distracted, nothing …
“I just forgot,” he said.
“I just want to say to other parents please always be 120 per cent sure where your kids are.”
Forgotten baby syndrome
Experts say Mr Hasan may have suffered from ‘forgotten baby syndrome’ – which can occur when a parent experiences short-term memory loss caused by a distraction or change of routine.
This is as a result of the carer being on autopilot and a change as simple as the absence of noise can be enough to induce the mental state.
More than 5,000 children are rescued from hot cars in Australia every year – the majority being babies and toddlers, according to child safety advocates Kidsafe.
‘Leaving children unattended in a car – even for a short period of time – can be fatal,’ Kidsafe’s website.
‘Children are particularly at risk because they can lose fluid quickly, become dehydrated and suffer from heatstroke.’
Our hearts are broken for the family and we send them our sincere condolences.
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