'I relive that every day': Father of toddlers who died in hot car says every day feels like 'living nightmare'
QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA: Peter Jackson, the heartbroken father of one of the two young girls who died when their mother, Kerri-Ann Conley, abandoned them in a hot car, expresses that he is still tormented by the traumatic event, causing each day to feel like a "living nightmare." Darcey-Helen and Chloe-Ann Conley were only two-and-a-half years old and 18 months old respectively when they were abandoned in a car outside their Brisbane home on November 23, 2019.
The girls remained in their car seats for nine hours, enduring temperatures exceeding 60 degrees Celsius (140 degrees Fahrenheit) inside the vehicle. Both of them were reportedly found with blisters and burns on their bodies and their skin was peeling off when paramedics tried to revive them. Despite the desperate efforts made to save them, the two girls were pronounced dead.
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'You feel like you're being suffocated'
Jackson will always carry with him the terrible memories of attempting to resuscitate his daughter on the bathroom floor after nine hours. "I relive that bathroom every night, every day," Jackson told ABC TV in an interview. "It's not just me that this has affected. It's the whole family. We've basically had to learn how to live again," he said. "You feel like you're being suffocated. You just want to lay in bed, pull the doona over your head, and be done with the day."
At the beginning of this year, Kerri-Ann Conley, the mother of the girls, was found guilty of their deaths, and the judge who delivered the sentence described her actions as "grossly negligent." According to Jackson, if Conley had not made the decision to leave the children in the car, they would still be alive. He also holds the child protection system of the Queensland government responsible for the tragedy. "If the Department of Child Safety had done what they were supposed to, then the girls would also still be here," he says. "They both failed Darcey and Chloe."
Peter Jackson is suing the Queensland Department of Child Safety
Jackson has initiated legal proceedings against the Queensland Department of Child Safety and is seeking compensation for the personal injuries he has suffered as a result of the girls' deaths, which occurred three and a half years ago, according to Daily Mail. As per the notice of claim filed with the Supreme Court last year, Jackson has been diagnosed with nervous shock, severe post-traumatic stress disorder, and severe anxiety, all of which he attributes to the tragedy.