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"Oh, he got out again."

Cylinder

Philosopher
Cylinder
Joined
Jun 10, 2005
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Location
Arkansas
"Oh, he got out again."

NDIANAPOLIS, Indiana (AP) -- Drivers swerved cars and trucks into other lanes to avoid a 3-year-old boy, wearing only a diaper and T-shirt, who was playing along a busy highway after wandering away from home while his mother slept, police said.

Some motorists stopped along Interstate 465 on the city's west side Saturday to take care of the boy until officers arrived, the Indiana State Police said.

"I looked up and I seen this little ... boy running down the middle of the slow lane in the interstate. I just could not believe what I was seeing," said Troy Crady, one of those who stopped to help.

The boy, Damon Dyer, was unscathed as at least a half-dozen cars and a tractor-trailer rig swerved into other lanes to avoid him. Temperatures were in the mid 50s as the boy ran around barefooted.

Police said they traced the toddler to an apartment at a nearby complex, where they found his mother, Nancy Dyer asleep in a filthy apartment and his 2-year-old sister eating spaghetti off the floor...

Senior State Trooper Cedric Merritt said that when Dyer was told of her son's activities, she responded: "Oh, he got out again."
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When my (beautiful) daughter was at 5 months, she developed a severe case of RSV. When our pediatrician admitted her to the hospital and put her in an oxygen tent, he told us that one of two things would happen - her O2 would go up and her serum antibodies would go down in a few days and everything would be fine or the opposite would happen and she would be placed on a ventilator ("About as serious as it gets" - I'll never forget those words.) After a tense and sleepless 72 hours things took an upswing and the doc told us we were out of the weeds. After several minutes of tears and hugging I walked out of the hospital room to decompress just as the little girl next door was being wheeled to NICU with her emotionally-wrecked parents right by her side. I could see the despair in Dad's face* just as clearly as I suspected he could detect the stupid little grin on mine.

The thing I most remember emotionally from the whole adventure was that overwhelming sense of guilt and thankfulness for having a soon-to-be-healthy baby. That's kind of how this story made me feel- thankful and guilty.

Hug your kids if you have them.

Oh yea - Happy New Year!

*The infant also fully recovered after a few days in NICU and I spent many hours chatting her parents up during hospital visits.
 
I know what you are talking about. I've got 3 children and have been to the emergency room on more than one occasion. One time I got up in the middle of the night to check my son and he was convulsing. I was so upset I could not speak to the 911 operator. His body was convulsing due to a fever. Turns out it is common but I honestly thought my child was dying. My son was not injured from it. Later my daughter also went into convulsions due to a fever and I was still upset but more able to cope with it and act in a rational manner.

I hope the mother in the story gets help if she has emotional problems. If she just doesn't care I hope the state takes her children away.

Happy new year.
 
I also have three kids- a set of almost-three-year-old twin boys, and a five-year-old girl.

Only once have I needed to take any of them to emergency- Alex (the youngest) had stuffed a chunk of apple up his nose, and I was unable to get it out by myself. He seemed perfectly happy to leave it there, but I didn't want it rotting in his sinuses.

As much as I hate to say it, I can empathize with the mother in this case. When kids outnumber parents in a family, they seem to instinctively take turns at keeping the adults awake. It's not hard to get to the point where one becomes an imbecile from lack of sleep.

On a recent flight to Europe, my wife took one boy off to the bathroom to change his diaper, and I never noticed that the other boy wandered off at the same time. Until she came back and demanded to know why I hadn't been watching him. Ooops.

New Years Resolution: Pay more attention.
 
Never fear! Young children will wander off without the slightest worry in the world - they have not yet learned how dangerous it is where they go.

Yours truly was one such offender (in the mid 1950's, what's more!). My mum says I would scale a 6-foot lattice fence and escape off up the street in search of fun, and no-one would know about it until a neighbour from over the road brought me home!
 
Zep said:
Never fear! Young children will wander off without the slightest worry in the world - they have not yet learned how dangerous it is where they go.
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Heh- my sister was once found in the local shopping mall at the age of three or four, and refused to be taken home by the neighbor who found her because she wasn't finished her shopping. But this was in the 1970s, when things were safer, and people slept with their doors unlocked...
 
Cylinder said:
INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana (AP) -- Drivers swerved cars and trucks into other lanes to avoid a 3-year-old boy, wearing only a diaper and T-shirt, who was playing along a busy highway after wandering away from home while his mother slept, police said.
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Hmm. I did that when I was three, only I was riding my tricycle down the centerline.

Boy, mom was pissed. :)
 
Madalch said:
As much as I hate to say it, I can empathize with the mother in this case. When kids outnumber parents in a family, they seem to instinctively take turns at keeping the adults awake. It's not hard to get to the point where one becomes an imbecile from lack of sleep.
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So imbecilic that one unlocks the doors of one's house before falling asleep with toddlers in the house?

ETA: Are you willing to empathize given that this wasn't the first time it happened?
 
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My son is a known escape artist having broken out windows in our old home to get out. He also has the understanding of a 9 month old and the strength of the 7 year old boy he is.

I have to fault the mother here. We boarded up the windows in our sons room and put a latch on the outside of his door so he could not get out during the night. While staying overnight in a house that was not that secured he did get out and was found nearly hypothermic in his lightweight pajamas on the front stoop in Februaury.

My new place is as secure as I can reasonably make it and the last thing I do everynight is check the door and window locks.

My son has no fear and no sense of self preservation. My greatest fear is him escaping. I cannot imagine being so unconcerned at the safety of ones children.


This woman needs help, because I also know the exhaustion that can come from being a single mom, working the night shift or two jobs and desperately needing sleep to the extent that everything else slips by the wayside.



Boo
 
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