Anything Goes

Posts Tagged ‘Children’

Only A Second?

March 15th, 2010

Greetings…

Did you all remember to change your clocks? If you didn’t, you’re
either early for something, or you remembered, but forgot the East
Coast is now three hours later than the West Coast, which means
someone, (not naming names), woke up VERY early this weekend…

Flyboy’s back is slowly, but surely mending. After taking the last
two weeks off, he had to get back in the cockpit over the weekend and
flew to Buffalo, New York, which is three hours later than Arizona
now that the time changed…Ahem

There’s nothing like a five hour plane ride to test out the ‘ole
back…

Friday night we had some “excitement” if you will, out here. Unfortunately,
it’s not the type of experience that is pleasant and this one had tragic
results…

Around 4 P.M. we heard the sound of helicopeters hovering and it seemed
like they were extremely close by. They were, they were above our house
in the back and flying pretty low. We stood on the patio and tried to
see if they were police or news helicopters. They were low enough to
see that they were news copters. We looked around to see if we could
see smoke in case it was a fire, and when I tell you they were “on top”
of our house, I’m saying we actually sniffed around to see if our own
place was going up in smoke! We couldn’t see anything, but knew something
big was going on…

Curiousity got the better of us and we got in the car to investigate,
because wherever the “story” was, we knew it had to be close by. We
drove out of our back gate and saw police 1/2 block away. As we drove
closer, the street we usually turn on to leave our area was blocked off
with police tape, not allowing any vehicles through. We U-turned it and
went back home, knowing whatever it was, would probably be on the 5:00
news…

Sadly, it was…

A man was doing some landscaping/excavating in his back yard. He was
using a Bobcat and didn’t notice his one-year-old and ran over him,
killing the child. I got sick to my stomach when I watched the news
and heard the details. I admit, at first,we wondered if it wasn’t a
domestic disturbance with a fatality and I will also admit, I wish it
had been that over the death of that baby. I know it was an accident
and I know it was a tragedy, but I will also admit that I found myself
feeling angry…

No one has really said why that baby was out there, whether he was
by himself, snuck out, being “watched” by his dad, his mom, etc.
But I ask you this…

Why wasn’t this baby being watched closer??? He was a BABY!!!

We live in a state where children drown in swimming pools at alarming
rates and it always seems that the person in charge of that child always
says, “I only turned away for a second”. I don’t buy it and I am NOT taking
anything away from the grieving parents because these things are tragic
accidents. But a “second”? A minute? Kids at any age need to be watched,
but I think you would agree that the younger the child, the more that
child needs to be watched. They are fast, they are sneaky, they are
inquisitive, and they are…our responsibility to keep them as safe as
humanly possible…

A Bobcat is loud, the father probably didn’t hear his child even though
the neighbor interviewed on TV said he heard the child scream out…

twice…

I feel for these parents immesely. I only hope that someone wasn’t on
the phone, computer, listening to an I-pod, etc. because no one can
convince me that a second is the time the person watching him turned
away, because it would have taken only a second to save him if that
was the amount of time needed…
And before I go, you may be wondering if I received any hate mail
regarding my column on men, divorce, and suicide. It’s one of those
good/bad deals. I didn’t receive any from that particular column. What
I DID get was a “nice” piece of mail that was a delayed response to a
column a few days before. I know some of you LOVE to see the banter when I

receive such mail and rather than waste too much space here, I’m including
the link to the blog that “features” not only the diatribe, but my response.
In case the link doesn’t work for some, the title of the blog thread is