Mother who caused her 21-month-old daughter's death by leaving her in car wants police to let her kill herself
A 38-year-old pediatric nurse Nicole Engler, who had accidentally left her 21-month-old daughter Remy in her car killing the toddler, was found guilty of second-degree manslaughter. Overcome by guilt, Nicole is now pleading with the police to let her kill herself. The nurse had allegedly forgotten to drop Remy at a daycare centre in the morning and left her in the car while she went to work at a hospital in Oregon. Around 4:30 pm, when she got off work, she found the 21-month-old baby dead in the car.
According to a report on Statesman Journal, Roseburg police has stated in an affidavit that the 38-year-old found her daughter unconscious and blue after she finished her shift as a nurse at Evergreen Family Medicine. Although Engler rushed her child to the medical facility, it was already too late. She was charged with second-degree manslaughter and court records do not list an attorney to speak on behalf of her. The temperature outside, when the toddler was discovered in the backseat of the car was 80 degrees (26 Celsius).
Nicole told the police that she had thought that she had dropped her daughter at the daycare. The case is now under investigation by the Douglas County Major Crimes Team, according to Oregon Live. The outlet states that, in 2014, an Intel worker in Oregon had faced charges of manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, and child neglect after he left his six-month-old child inside the car outside his office in Hillsboro. However, prosecutors had later dropped all charges against the worker Joshua Freier calling the incident a "tragic and unintentional accident."
According to KidsandCars.org, on an average, over 37 children die from heat-related deaths after being trapped inside vehicles. It states that even "the best of parents or caregivers can unknowingly leave a sleeping baby in a car, and the end result can be injury or even death." Each year, children die of hyperthermia — a situation when the body temperature goes above 104 degrees and does not easily come down. In 2018 alone, around seven children have died in such tragedies ranging from Texas to Virginia.
In an examination of media reports conducted by Noheatstroke.org, there have been around 700 pediatric vehicular strokes within a span of 19 years (1998 to 2017). While the circumstances vary from incident to incident, 54 % of the children die after being 'forgotten' by a caregiver. 27 % deaths are caused when a child is left to play in an unattended vehicle and, shockingly, 18 % deaths were caused after the child was intentionally left in the vehicle.
In this regard, the Helping Overcome Trauma for Children Alone in Rear Seats Act (HOT CARS Act of 2017) serves as a critical piece of legislation that helps prevent the needless death of a child left alone in a car. The act requires all new passenger motor vehicles, which weigh less than 10,000 pounds, be equipped with a system for rear seating positions to alert the operator after the vehicle is deactivated. The act states that "the means shall include a distinct auditory and visual alert that may be combined with a haptic alert, and shall be activated after the vehicle motor is deactivated by the operator.