The Associated Press is reporting that a Texas bus driver who was driving late at night nearly ran over a baby girl sitting in the middle of the road. The girl is fine, but her mother is now fighting to retain custody of her and her two sisters.
I know a lot of people are focusing on how bad the parents must be. But I just thank God for that alert bus driver. This is why you don’t text and drive like this guy:
May 20, 2010 at 12:12 pm
The Juxtaposition of the two clips is amazing.
May 20, 2010 at 12:47 pm
The 2nd driver is extremely lucky. A friend sent me photos of a driver who had been texting seconds before imbedding his car into the front grille of a semi. Very graphic.
May 20, 2010 at 5:46 pm
I have nightmares about this sort of thing all the time: small children in the road, running off the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and trying to figure out how to extract and save 6 children from drowning…
I feel for the mom of the baby, she could have escaped the house for just a few moments while her mama was going to the bathroom. It is impossible to be everywhere at all times, you have to trust that their guardian angels will assist in keeping little ones safe.
May 20, 2010 at 6:56 pm
Once when I had left my kids with my husband whie I went-I think to help out my parents-my husband answered a three year old's question of "Where's Mommy?" with "She's on the road" -meaning that I was at that moment driving home. He then went into another room. Three year old got up, incidentally taking off all his clothes because he had wet the bed, and went out to look for me 'on the road'. At about 11:30 pm. One of my older kids happened to look into his room, didn't see him, looked around the house, didn't see him, and somehow wound up going outside and finding him stark naked in the middle of the road…a road where people drive by at 60 mph…but seldom.
There but for the grace of God, go I.
Susan Peterson
May 20, 2010 at 11:23 pm
When I was three years old, I stepped out the door of our house while my mom and dad were watching my older brother and two younger brothers. I guess I was in the mood for a walk. Anyway, I stuck my thumb in my mouth and started walking–down the long driveway and on down the middle of the road. A woman driving down that road saw me and stopped, looked around to find the nearest house, and brought me to the door, where my mortified parents admitted that I was theirs and they hadn't seen me leave the house.
They weren't bad parents. They were just distracted by three other kids, and I liked to wander. It never happened again, though.
Fortunately, at the time, we didn't have people ready to call CPS every time a child walked out the door without a parent. Yes, my parents blamed themselves, and yes, they made sure it didn't happen again.
I'm grateful for the bus driver's alertness–for the little girl's sake and for her parents'.
May 21, 2010 at 4:52 pm
I also got out of the house once when I was little. In fact probably the only thing that kept my little escape artist self from going outside more often is that I was a climber and my mom was more likely to find me on top of the fridge or linen closet.
Perhaps there are other reasons why they should be fighting for custody, but a child escaping isn't one of them. It's sad that so many people think first "bad parent" and immediately call an evil organization (CPS) to "help" the child.