scooter
08-16-2004, 09:19 AM
Why won't people learn? Have a read. I can't type too much more about this because I am going to start cursing. I wouldn't leave my dog like that....what the %$#$ were they thinking? :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil:
Wailing baby saved from stifling truck
'I thought, Oh my God, we're too late'
Leanne Dohy and Sherri Zickefoose
Calgary Herald
Saturday, August 14, 2004
CREDIT: Mikael Kjellstrom, Calgary Herald
Const. Mike Baker thanks Valerie Jeffries Friday for saving a baby.
A trip to the store for Popsicles might have made Val Jeffries hero enough in the eyes of her overheated co-workers Friday afternoon.
Then she rescued a child.
A three-week-old boy was locked in his family's truck in the parking lot of the Real Canadian Wholesale Club at 222 58th Ave. S.E., as temperatures soared to the high 20s C.
Jeffries, 44, heard the panicked wailing the second she stepped out of her car, and scanned the parking lot for its source. It was coming from the Suburban parked right beside the "lucky," near-the-door spot Jeffries had just pulled into.
"At first I thought maybe there was a mother in there, changing the baby or feeding it or something," Jeffries remembered. "But there was nobody. Just the baby, covered with a blanket."
She could tell from the "electric," frantic cry that the child was a newborn and in deep distress.
Another bystander, a young woman, ran inside the store to get her father while Jeffries called 911. One of the windows was open a crack, and the man tried to squeeze his arm in to open the door. As the trio worked, the infant cried frantically. And then he stopped.
"I thought, Oh my God, we're too late," Jeffries said, taking a ragged breath.
"Then he started up again, and we were able to get to him."
The three-week-old boy was gasping and weak when they first reached him, Jeffries said. They lifted him out of the truck and into the shade.
"The baby was covered head-to-toe," said Calgary police Const. Mike Baker, adding the infant was in the sweltering truck for about 20 minutes.
Jeffries, still shaken hours after the rescue, was amazed the child survived as long as he did.
"They measured the temperature in the truck, and it was something like 130 degrees (Fahrenheit)," she said. "What are the chances that he would have made it? And that I would have found that one spot, right there beside that truck?"
Paramedics arrived moments later, shortly after 3 p.m., and quickly worked to cool the sweaty, lethargic baby. He was rushed to Alberta Children's Hospital, where he was treated with fluids and then released.
EMS issued a warning to parents and guardians to never leave children or infants unattended in a vehicle.
"An infant's body does not have the mechanisms to cope with extreme heat, so even a few minutes can be critical," said EMS Supt. Bill McComb.
The child's parents, who appeared to be in their 20s, and two other older adults were met by police as they returned to the vehicle.
The incident is under investigation by the police department's child at risk team in conjunction with social services, Baker said. It was unknown yet whether charges would be laid under the Child Protection Act.
Jeffries, the mother of three grown children and grandmother of one, was as upset about the lack of reaction from other passersby as she was about the preventable incident.
"It was so busy in the parking lot," she said. "The young girl that heard it too, she said the crying had been going on for a while. How many people must have walked by, without doing anything?"
Still at work Friday evening, Jeffries admitted tearfully she was feeling rattled by the experience.
"I feel good, because he's OK, but I feel bad, too, you know? It shouldn't have happened," she said.
Wailing baby saved from stifling truck
'I thought, Oh my God, we're too late'
Leanne Dohy and Sherri Zickefoose
Calgary Herald
Saturday, August 14, 2004
CREDIT: Mikael Kjellstrom, Calgary Herald
Const. Mike Baker thanks Valerie Jeffries Friday for saving a baby.
A trip to the store for Popsicles might have made Val Jeffries hero enough in the eyes of her overheated co-workers Friday afternoon.
Then she rescued a child.
A three-week-old boy was locked in his family's truck in the parking lot of the Real Canadian Wholesale Club at 222 58th Ave. S.E., as temperatures soared to the high 20s C.
Jeffries, 44, heard the panicked wailing the second she stepped out of her car, and scanned the parking lot for its source. It was coming from the Suburban parked right beside the "lucky," near-the-door spot Jeffries had just pulled into.
"At first I thought maybe there was a mother in there, changing the baby or feeding it or something," Jeffries remembered. "But there was nobody. Just the baby, covered with a blanket."
She could tell from the "electric," frantic cry that the child was a newborn and in deep distress.
Another bystander, a young woman, ran inside the store to get her father while Jeffries called 911. One of the windows was open a crack, and the man tried to squeeze his arm in to open the door. As the trio worked, the infant cried frantically. And then he stopped.
"I thought, Oh my God, we're too late," Jeffries said, taking a ragged breath.
"Then he started up again, and we were able to get to him."
The three-week-old boy was gasping and weak when they first reached him, Jeffries said. They lifted him out of the truck and into the shade.
"The baby was covered head-to-toe," said Calgary police Const. Mike Baker, adding the infant was in the sweltering truck for about 20 minutes.
Jeffries, still shaken hours after the rescue, was amazed the child survived as long as he did.
"They measured the temperature in the truck, and it was something like 130 degrees (Fahrenheit)," she said. "What are the chances that he would have made it? And that I would have found that one spot, right there beside that truck?"
Paramedics arrived moments later, shortly after 3 p.m., and quickly worked to cool the sweaty, lethargic baby. He was rushed to Alberta Children's Hospital, where he was treated with fluids and then released.
EMS issued a warning to parents and guardians to never leave children or infants unattended in a vehicle.
"An infant's body does not have the mechanisms to cope with extreme heat, so even a few minutes can be critical," said EMS Supt. Bill McComb.
The child's parents, who appeared to be in their 20s, and two other older adults were met by police as they returned to the vehicle.
The incident is under investigation by the police department's child at risk team in conjunction with social services, Baker said. It was unknown yet whether charges would be laid under the Child Protection Act.
Jeffries, the mother of three grown children and grandmother of one, was as upset about the lack of reaction from other passersby as she was about the preventable incident.
"It was so busy in the parking lot," she said. "The young girl that heard it too, she said the crying had been going on for a while. How many people must have walked by, without doing anything?"
Still at work Friday evening, Jeffries admitted tearfully she was feeling rattled by the experience.
"I feel good, because he's OK, but I feel bad, too, you know? It shouldn't have happened," she said.