Our worst child neglect story to date (a coworker's tale)

[Seshat]

But if my 2 were alseep in the car when me and the mrs stopped one of us would stay or wake them up and take them with us.

I know my parents always did; and continued to do so with my niece and nephew. Of course, since the brats are now both high school age, they can be more casual - but the key phrase is 'a bit'.

You make sure BOTH kids are IN the car AND seatbelted into place before turning the key. Every time. And if they're not, you make sure you know exactly why not. (Like, maybe they're staying over with Grandma. That's a good reason to leave Grandma's house without them. )

And if you're leaving them in the car, you take the weather into account; and you make sure one of them at least is awake and knows precisely where you'll be, and for how long. (Given their ages, it's safe enough to leave either of them in charge of the car - any younger than Nephew is now, and it'd be an adult or a sensible late-teen in charge.)

I've heard of people who make the trip from Reno to Sacramento in an hour and a half (for the record, they're nuts, borderline suicidal to make the drive over Donner that fast).

If that's the location where the 'Donner Party' tragedy happened; then <shudder>. Even modernised, properly graded, etc etc, a mountain route like that is NOT a place you drive quickly.

I'm assuming it's full of switchbacks and hairpin turns and long-drops on the edge of the road, of course. If it's not, then I'm probably wrong.

[smileyeagle1021]

If that's the location where the 'Donner Party' tragedy happened; then <shudder>. Even modernised, properly graded, etc etc, a mountain route like that is NOT a place you drive quickly.

I'm assuming it's full of switchbacks and hairpin turns and long-drops on the edge of the road, of course. If it's not, then I'm probably wrong.

Donner Pass is indeed named after the Donner Party, but it isn't switchbacks and hairpin turns, it is built to full interstate standards... or at least what they were back in the 1950s when it was built. The speed limit for most of it is 65, but it is a scary 65, there is still a lot of steep grades, a lot of sharp curves that actually have reduced speed limits, a lot of steep drop offs and very narrow or non existent shoulders. The Donner Party's doom wasn't so much the terrain (though that surely did not help their cause, Donner Summit is over a mile above sea level), but the weather. Had the Donner Party opted to build a long term camp to weather out the winter down in the Truckee Meadows, most likely almost all of them would have survived, but they decided to attempt the pass during the winter, which even with modern snow removal equipment will close several times a season. The Truckee Meadows receives so little rain that it is classified a desert, at the same time, until settling by Europeans, was mostly swamp land. This of course seems like a major contradiction (swamps in the desert) until you realize that the Sierras (and in particular Donner Pass) will easily receive yards of snow each winter (the snow melt being what created the swamp land in the valley below). Once the first flake fell, they didn't have a chance. They made it as far as what is now known as Donner Lake (located in a mountain meadow several miles before the summit) before the snow became too deap for them to continue, at that point they attempted building a camp, but there was no more vegetation for them to forage, no wild life still out for them to hunt (both of which they could have found during the winter down in the Truckee Meadows), freezing winds, and a severe shortage of dry wood for building fires. The few party members who tried to go ahead to seek a rescue party in Sacramento found that they were hopelessly lost as all the land marks they were planning on using were unrecognizable under so much snow.

[wolfie]

Just so I can get a handle on distance, what city (or a city of relative distance if you want to keep your location secret) are you located in?

Smiley's location field (top right corner of every post he makes) says "Reno", so I assume he's OK to reveal that much. According to my motor carrier road atlas, it's 135 miles (southwest) from Reno to Sacramento.

I hope they found better parents for the kids and didn't give them back. People like that don't deserve to be parents.

In Smiley's original post, he mentioned that the county's finest had some accessories ready for the sperm donor and incubator - I assume he means chrome bracelets linked by a chain. Also, the children were in state custody. From both of those, it seems like it wasn't a simple case of the children being returned to their family once the family got back to the scene.

If it had been a simple case of the family checking into the hotel after a long drive, parents fall asleep, kids wander out of the room and can't remember which it is (never mind not having a key), I'm sure they would have been returned to the parents as soon as the hotel tracked them down.

[Tama]

Thanks. I knew you couldn't post your EXACT location, but that gives me a good idea of just HOW horrible that neglect was...

[smileyeagle1021]

If it had been a simple case of the family checking into the hotel after a long drive, parents fall asleep, kids wander out of the room and can't remember which it is (never mind not having a key), I'm sure they would have been returned to the parents as soon as the hotel tracked them down.

which apparently happens more often than you'd realize. Parents don't think anything about staying in a hotel, it's pretty much old hat by now, but for kids the idea of being in a hotel is kind of magical, it is a series of rooms they have never been in before and open for the exploring, and while the parents can just sleep, kids who are excited aren't always the best at sleeping. So, quite common for them to be awake while parents are asleep... most of the kids are old enough to know their last name (and pray it isn't "Smith" or something common) and we can figure out what room they are in (well, I haven't had to deal with it so much here, but I did at the airport hotel)... sometimes though it's a youngen, and then all hell breaks loose.

[raudf]

I'm... at a complete loss. Those poor kids, having parents that so loves gambling that their kids safety becomes second.. or third place. It takes a special kind of awful to just leave your kinds asleep in the car, in a strange place at NIGHT while you go gambling. And then not bother doing a proper nose count? I hope the judge threw his bench at the parents. I really do.