The tragedy took place in the town of Schorndorf near Stuttgart. Before starting work, a forty-four-year-old woman wanted to leave her 20-month-old daughter in daycare. She was probably stressed or distracted, but she didn’t put the child in the nursery and left him in the car. She parked it in front of the climbing hall in Schorndorf and went to work. She returned to the car only in the afternoon, writes the website of the weekly Focus.
There she found only a lifeless body. “Although resuscitation was started immediately, the girl was already dead,” said the police spokeswoman. At that time, the temperature in the parking lot was around 28 degrees Celsius.
The public prosecutor’s office in Stuttgart opened proceedings against the mother for manslaughter. The autopsy should bring clarity to the case, which should take place either on Thursday or during Friday. Experts should find out to what extent the heat in the closed car is behind the girl’s death, or are there other medical reasons behind her death.
The “forgotten child syndrome” is mainly caused by stress, lack of sleep or unpredictable events that change the daily routine, according to American psychology professor David M. Diamond. This creates a false memory in the brain of the usual activity, that is, that the child is taken to the nursery or kindergarten, even if the person in question has forgotten about it.
