Safety

A 5 year old Kindergartener choked on what family is now suspecting was a thumb tack, on his school bus en route to his home. While such a freak, terrible and tragic accident, I wonder if bus drivers shouldn’t be required to know CPR and the Heimlich maneuver.

The 5-year-old boy who died on a Marlborough school bus Wednesday was a kindergarten student named Darnell Cobb, officials said earlier today.

In a press conference at Central Fire Station - a few hundred yards away from where the bus pulled over yesterday - Mayor Nancy Stevens said Cobb was unconscious when paramedics arrived at the bus. Efforts by emergency responders and Marlborough Hosptial staff to revive the boy were unsuccessful, she said.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has come up with a new 5-star ratings system to help parents make a more informed choice as to which car seat is easiest for parents to properly install. In other words, a 1-star car seat will require a degree from MIT, while the 5-star is perfect for those with the hand coordination of a lobster, like us. Hopefully this will have some influence on car seat manufacturers to make them all easy to put in to stay competitive, as we don’t see too many parents having a hard time answering the question, “Hmmm, should I get the 2-star car seat that will take an hour to get in and out of the minivan, or the 5-star one that take 30 seconds?”

Regulators hope to address confusion among parents over the wide variety of seats and installation methods.

Using a five-star rating system, the new approach will judge safety seats by the ease with which the seats can be used by parents.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says seven in 10 child safety seats are either the wrong size of misused. That reduces the seats’ ability to protect kids in a crash.

You can view the new guidelines at the NHTSA website.

If it’s not bad enough to have your car stolen, but to have your baby shot by the thieves is unfathomable.

I don’t understand it. Take the car, take all of ones belongings — the baby wasn’t going to identify these hoodlums. Why hurt and murder an innocent little baby?

A 13-month-old boy was shot and killed and his mother was wounded during an apparent carjacking Monday night in Gary, officials said.

The shooting was reported around 7:35 p.m. in the 500 block of West 21st Avenue, but it was unclear whether that was where the original carjacking took place, officials with the Lake County coroner’s office said early Tuesday morning.

Josiah T. Shaw, who lived in the 5800 block of Forest Court in Gary, was taken from the red sport-utility vehicle to Gary Methodist Hospital where he died of gunshot wounds to the chin and left pelvic area, according to the coroner’s office.

We remember one time when our oldest son was in preschool, we received a note home from the teacher saying, “Please don’t send money to school with the children, it can get lost and the coins pose a choking hazard for the younger kids.” Turns out he had picked up change lying around the house and put it in his pocket, and was showing it off to his friends. So we get how a kid can sneak things out of the house without the parent knowing. But a gun and knife? We’re not anti-gun nuts by any means, but if you have to have that stuff in your house, for the love of pete, lock it up!

Sequoyah County Sheriff Johnny Philpot says no one was injured and it appears the [first grade] boy was showing his father’s gun to friends at Central Elementary School Wednesday.

Philpot says another student told a teacher about the weapons and school officials say authorities were called immediately.

Philpot says the boy’s parents kept the gun in a nightstand in their bedroom for protection.

Ty, Inc., famous as the maker of the huge hit Beanie Babies, is refusing to pull its doll, Jammin’ Jenna, from shelves despite being notified that the doll contains high amounts of lead. They’ve stopped selling new ones, but as for the ones still sitting in stores, you’re SOL. Why? Nobody will say.

Despite its concern with Party City, the attorney general’s office said it is most troubled with Ty Inc. over its Jammin’ Jenna, one of several dolls in the Ty Girlz product line.

“They sell very popular products that children love. It would be our expectation that they would step up and do what they can to make sure their products don’t contain lead,” said Cara Smith, deputy chief of staff to Illinois Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan.

Scott Wehrs, Ty’s chief operating officer, declined to comment for this article.

Last fall, the Tribune tested the red vinyl shoes on three Jammin’ Jenna dolls, and all three exceeded Illinois lead limits. (The newspaper also tested several other dolls in the Ty Girlz line, but those showed no detectable amounts of lead.)

An family with Indiana license plates, missing since January 10th, have been found submerged in lake in their car. Police are still investigating the circumstances. The area where the car went under is reported to be a hairpin turn.

GALLATIN COUNTY – One week after Marilyn Robbins reported her son and his family missing, the family of five was found dead inside their car in a Gallatin County creek.

Investigators confirmed Friday evening that the family drowned after their car went off the road. They include: Glenn Allen Johnson Jr., 33; his pregnant wife Kendra Nicole Johnson, 26; and their children Sevin, 5; Mekenzie, 2; and Mya Ula-Jean, 18 months.

Autopsies were completed at St. Luke East in Fort Thomas.

The vehicle, recovered Thursday night, was traveling west on Ky. 467 when it went over the side of the road and overturned into Eagle Creek. The car was almost completely covered by the water.

Two teen girls were precariously dangling from a bridge when the driver lost control and slid to the very edge.

Luckily, the two escaped unharmed.

Whew. That was a close one!

Shaw said she was just trying to avoid the other car, and aimed for the side of the narrow road. She was able to slow the pickup just enough to keep it from falling.

“I saw the creek and I was, like, ‘Oh, my gosh.’ We were blessed because we didn’t go into the creek,” passenger Bridget Shaw said.

“I was thinking that we were really lucky that we didn’t tip over,” said Robyn Shaw.

What a scary situation.

Just another reason to reconsider leaving children unattended in a car. There is so much than can happen, besides this freak accident, it could be an abduction or a child getting out and running in front of a car.

“I couldn’t get over there fast enough,” said Michael Wright. He lives next door to the convenience store on West Craighead Road when someone told him the car was on fire with kids, ages three-months to five-years old, inside.

“When I opened the door, that’s when I found out how really intense the flames were. And the kids just were engulfed. I was trying. I had my foot trying to pull the seat belt they were strapped in. I was trying to do anything because it was just really intense,” said Wright.

In the video (see cited link), you can see the mother and Wright were struggling to get the kids out of the burning car. However, it wasn’t until the store owner came out with an extinguisher they were able to cool the car down enough to get the kids out.

A mother, father and child crashed into a lake in Georgia, where the car sank, killing the entire family. I pray that they were unconscious when the car sank.

HARALSON COUNTY, Ga. — Georgia State Patrol has confirmed a mother, father and child were killed when their car crashed into a Haralson County lake Wednesday evening during wintry weather conditions.

Trooper Larry Schnall with the GSP said weather appears to be a factor in the crash. Weather conditions and roads in Haralson County were slick after sleet and snow moved through the area Wednesday evening.

Two children were dropped off at Cy-Fair fire station in Texas by their overwhelmed and stressed out mother who didn’t know what to do with them.

The mother will not be charged, but the kids will be taken to CPS (Children and Public Services). Perhaps the mother will be required to take some parenting classes (just a guess).

As unconventional as it is, I actually applaud the mother for doing that rather than how some parents choose to take challenges into their own hands and harm the child. She knew she needed help and she went to a place of authority to get it.

HOUSTON — A mother left her two children at a Cy-Fair fire station on Friday because they were misbehaving, officials told KPRC Local 2.

Precinct 4 deputy constables said it was unusual but not illegal.

“She dropped the children off and said, ‘You need to learn to behave,’ or something to that effect,” Lt. Michael Young said. “The children were a little nondescript in exactly what the mother said. She drove off.”

Deputies were able to get the grandmother’s name and number from the 8-year-old boy and 10-year-old girl. They called her and she called the mother, who eventually returned to Cy-Fair fire station 1.

UPDATE: tragedy now ruled a murder/suicide

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A woman and her niece and nephew crossed a busy highway in Boston and were run over by two separate cars.

The whole situation is so bizarre. First, the woman had pulled over because she was driving on the wrong side of the road, and then proceeds to walk into traffic with the 4 and 5 year old. Makes me think that maybe alcohol was involved??

Poor babies. Their aunt should have made every possible attempt to keep them safe but instead, lead them to an agonizing death.

Marcelle Thibault, 39, of Bellingham, Mass., was driving in the wrong direction on the highway when she drove her 2003 Lincoln on to the grassy shoulder of the road, state police said. Thibault was traveling southbound in the northbound section of the road.

Thibault then got out of the car with the 4-year-old boy and 5-year-old girl who were traveling with her.
Police did not offer an explanation for what happened next.

Thibault and the two children walked out into the middle of the road, police said, where they were hit by two cars. All three were taken to hospitals and pronounced dead.

UPDATE: The district attorney has ruled this case a murder/suicide.

This baby is lucky. She wasn’t even strapped to her car seat properly, but the mere fact that she was laying in a car seat and had thick clothing on, came together as a very happy coincidence.

By the way, what the heck is a “pumpkin seat”?

A 6-month-old baby boy thrown from an SUV that crashed on Interstate 44 this morning suffered only minor injuries, officials say.

St. Louis Fire Capt. Bob Keuss said the baby, inside her pumpkin seat, was thrown out a rear window when the SUV turned on its side about 8 a.m. on eastbound I-44 near Southwest Avenue.

The baby, wearing winter clothes and in her pumpkin seat, had not been properly strapped into the car, police said.

Emergency workers found the baby trapped in the seat, police said.

Keuss theorizes that the padding from the clothing and the pumpkin seat helped cushion the fall.

A stray bullet hit an 11 year old girl in Tennessee, out of nowhere, while she was horseback riding.

Scary!

LEBANON, Tenn. — A day of horseback riding turned painful for a local girl when she was hit by a bullet.

Allie Nadeau, 11, is alive, but her mother said she is angry and determined the same thing won’t happen again to her daughter or anyone else.

Tonya Nadeau said she got a call saying that her daughter had been shot at the neighborhood stables.

The forces of mother nature are something that cannot always be reckoned with.

Such a sad story, a mothers SUV gets stuck in rising flood waters and she must make a choice as to who to rescue first.

Just a horrible situation…

In northern Indiana, Megihann Leininger’s SUV stalled Tuesday on a flooded road near Rochester, about 45 miles south of South Bend, before floating into deeper water, the Fulton County Sheriff’s Department said.

The first officer on the scene could see nothing except its roof rack, Mentone Fire Chief Mike Yazel said. He said Leininger, 29, was able to come to the surface and put three of her children on the roof: Mariah Leininger, 4, Michael McDaniel, 1, and Canari Trigg, 3 months.

It took several minutes for crews to rescue the four, but there was nothing they could do for Shay Leininger, 5, and Ashley Pruitt, 2, who were trapped underwater.

“The water was too deep, too cold, too fast,” Yazel said. Their mother “had to sit there on the roof, knowing that would be the worst part of the story,” he said.

Proving that it’s wise to bow down to the temper tantrums of mother nature, 6 snowmobilers who were reported missing over the last few days have been found alive.

CONEJOS, Colorado (AP) — Six snowmobilers missing in the snowy Colorado mountains were found alive Monday, the Conejos County Sheriff’s Department said.

The snowmobilers and two skiers had been reported missing in heavy snow in the mountains of southern Colorado.

The snowmobilers are two couples from Farmington, New Mexico, and their two children, ages 14 and 13, said Betty Groen, the stepmother of one of the men.