A 30-year-old woman from North Augusta, South Carolina, has been arrested and is under investigation after it emerged that she left her child in her car for 10 straight hours while she worked.
The incident happened last Friday, when Raquel Drayton Stevens went to work at the North Augusta Middle School, where she’s a math teacher, WRDW reports. Police documents obtained by the media outlet show that Stevens drove to school at 7.20 in the morning and “forgot” her child in the car.
She would come back to her 2-year toddler 10 hours later. She told police officers that she started the drive for the hospital immediately when she realized what she’d done, but stopped along the way at the Richmond County Sheriff's Office when she saw that the toddler was unconscious.
“An ambulance was called from the sheriff's office and the child was taken to the Augusta University Medical Center. Deputies arrived at the hospital around 5:30 p.m. It's unclear what charges Stevens is facing, but we do know DSS is involved,” the report notes.
It doesn’t mention anything about the child’s current condition.
While forgetting a child behind in a locked car might seem like the last thing anyone could do, various charities working to raise awareness on the issue note that it’s actually common with exhausted, stressed-out parents, whose minds go blank at certain points during the day. Routine can also work against them, like when they’re supposed to drop off the child on a different day of the week.
Whether that was the case with Stevens remains to be seen, but to avoid such situations, parents are advised to “look before you lock.” A visual cues systems would be ideal for this, like leaving a toy or a shoe in the backseat, as a reminder to always look there before locking the car.
She would come back to her 2-year toddler 10 hours later. She told police officers that she started the drive for the hospital immediately when she realized what she’d done, but stopped along the way at the Richmond County Sheriff's Office when she saw that the toddler was unconscious.
“An ambulance was called from the sheriff's office and the child was taken to the Augusta University Medical Center. Deputies arrived at the hospital around 5:30 p.m. It's unclear what charges Stevens is facing, but we do know DSS is involved,” the report notes.
It doesn’t mention anything about the child’s current condition.
While forgetting a child behind in a locked car might seem like the last thing anyone could do, various charities working to raise awareness on the issue note that it’s actually common with exhausted, stressed-out parents, whose minds go blank at certain points during the day. Routine can also work against them, like when they’re supposed to drop off the child on a different day of the week.
Whether that was the case with Stevens remains to be seen, but to avoid such situations, parents are advised to “look before you lock.” A visual cues systems would be ideal for this, like leaving a toy or a shoe in the backseat, as a reminder to always look there before locking the car.