Mom Leaves Children In Freezing Car While She Gets A Tan

[matcom]

<snip>


A Sheboygan woman was arrested Wednesday after police say she left her two children — one under 2 years old — in the car in subzero wind chills so she could go tanning.

Lori Yeager, 27, was arrested about 5:50 p.m. in the 500 block of South Taylor Drive near Taylor Heights Shopping Center, according to the Sheboygan Police Department.

“She said she was going on vacation and apparently felt that the tanning was a priority,” Lt. Jeff Johnston said this morning.

Yeager was issued two misdemeanor citations for child neglect and will be in court on Feb. 26. She will not be charged by the district attorney’s office, a secretary there said.

Two passersby called police about 5:50 p.m. after spotting the children, ages 23 months and 10 years, sitting alone in a car that was unlocked and not running, said Sgt. Scott Mittelstadt. The children had been in the car 20 minutes when police arrived, he said.

The temperature at the time was 12 degrees, with a wind chill index of about minus 2.

http://www.sheboygan-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070209/SHE0101/70209023/1973

[edbermac]

1. Probably this guy's wife.

[ThomCat]

2. Why the hell WON'T she be charged by the DA?

x(

Two children left unattended in the freezing cold with no heat and she only got 2 misdemeanor citations? My head is about to explode. :grr:

[kath]

15. If she was poor and/or black, she would have been charged. People that

are well-off enough to afford tanning/etc, and whites, are given more of a pass in such matters. Sad but true.

[ThomCat]

18. You're right.

x(

[Oeditpus Rex]

3. I've said it before and I'll say it again

I don't care how it makes me sound. We need to come up with an ethical form of reversible sterilization in lieu of being certified capable of parentage.

Too many people just should not be allowed to replicate themselves. :grr:

[skygazer]

4. You know, child rearing is not an innate instinct

I don't condone crap like this and yes, she should be arrested and charged. But there are a lot of people out there who have no idea what it means to be a parent - they've had lousy parents themselves or were abandoned or whatever.

I wonder how much it would cost to have a social worker visit new parents in hospitals and give them a few basic lessons in child care. Probably just dreaming again.

[Dastard Stepchild]

7. Good point...

And it wouldn't cost much to have a hospital social worker visit... except that many hospitals have a very short supply of them. :(

[Katherine Brengle]

11. Parenting classes should be required for anyone expecting --

it wouldn't be that expensive for hospitals to have a teacher in staff and for doctors to refer patients to the classes.

Of course, you will still always have those people who don't even get prenatal care... no help there.

BTW, I had no clue about how to take care of a child when I had my daughter, but I knew not to leave a kid sitting in a car in any type of weather - even though as a kid I was left in the car plenty of times... it doesn't take a genius.

[havocmom]

16. Because society has really bad priorities, too many don't learn parenting.

Too many have other priorities. Parenting is becoming a lost art. A species which does not adequately care for its dependent young is doomed.*

*And 'care for' is NOT the same as 'do everything for'. We fail our young when we do not allow them to grow into functioning individuals. There are a lot of emotional and functional cripples out there due to over controlling parents. It's a balancing act, but we ignore it at great peril.

[MissMillie]

5. the mother is a jerk, to be sure

but I have a question...

what difference does a "wind chill index" make to the kids when they're not subject to the wind.

I thought the wind chill measured how cold an animate object FEELS when subject to the wind.

Am I missing something?

[mainegreen]

8. It'll still suck heat out of the car faster, but not as fast as off your body.

Evaporation and all.

[Chan790]

It's complex, but...

the $0.05 answer (the not technically-accurate but close-enough and easy to understand) is that wind across or on a surface both cools that surface and causes evaporation (which dissipates heat).

The wind chill is, in fact, cooling the car below ambient temperature. It's the same way the heat sink and fan in your computer work together to keep the CPU from catching fire.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

12. Wind chill cools below ambient temp? How's that?

To me, the wind just helps the warm object get down to ambient temp quickly. I don't see that it will go below that.

If the air temp is 33 degrees Fahrenheit, it can blow at any windspeed, and it will not freeze a puddle of water.

The kids were not exposed to the wind, only to the temp inside the car. So if they were dressed for the cold (and probably were, in Sheboygan), then they could sit there all day with no problem. I think she got the ticket because she left them unattended, not because she endangered them.

Yeah, she ain't too bright, but no killer.

[Chan790]

14. Interestingly...

Wind will not freeze a puddle but it will sublimate a frozen one or evaporate a liquid one. What makes it odd is if you could measure temperature in a minute-enough degree, you'd discover that the air directly above the puddle surface is a few hundredths of a degree cooler than the rest of the air in the area. Evaporation cools surfaces and wind drives evaporation. The inside of that car after an hour or so, if not in direct sunlight and with a 25-30 MPH wind, will be 2 to 3 degrees colder than the air outside.

No, it wouldn't increase likelihood of killing them but they're already at risk of hypothermia at those temperatures. Especially the baby.

Like I said it's a bit more complex than the answer I gave. (there are more forces at work than those explained).

[kath]

17. You're right - you absolutely can NOT cool below ambient temperature.

(HEATING above ambient temperature, however, IS possible in a closed car, due to the greenhouse effect of the sun shining through the glass. But cooling below ambient temp is NOT going to happen, no matter how windy it is. In fact, if it was sunny out that day in Sheboygan, the temp inside the car could have been substantially above the ambient temp.)

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

19. I wonder if the cops measured the temp inside the car

If the car was warm when parked, it would take a while to cool off. Sun wouldn't have been a factor at 5:50pm in Sheboygan, either dark out or twilight.

I'm guessing the reporter quoted the wind-chill just for the dramatic effect, not for the actual danger presented.

[Chan790]

20. I suspect you're right...

It'd take a lot more than 20 minutes to make a difference and only under certain conditions. Wind Chill is not relevant unless the windows were down. I doubt that.

[ThomCat]

21. Wind pulls away any heat, so even if the temperature is constant

body heat cannot build up inside the car, and any ambient heat will quickly be gone. The car will cool to the outside temperature much more quickly.

[El Fuego]

6. It's not like they were puppies or anything.

:popcorn:

[TK421]

9. What a cold, heartless thing to do n/t

[Courtesy Flush]

10. "Wind chill"?

Sure, it was neglect, and charges should have been filed (I'm a child protection caseworker, BTW), but why the repeated reference to the wind chill? Wind chill has no effect on someone who is not exposed to the wind. Inside a car, it's not a factor.

Wasn't the story serious enough without having to exaggerate for the sake of drama?

[SKKY]

13. How did the line go in that Harvey Danger song???

"Been around the world and found that only stupid people are breeding."