OREGON—A nanny in Portland has been charged on multiple counts after leaving a 3-year-old boy and 2 month old baby girl alone inside a minivan on a 90 degree day while she entered a tanning salon to work on her tan.
The nanny, Kristen Marie Jones, 23, pleaded not guilty on all counts Friday after a grand jury indicted her on 2 counts first-degree criminal mistreatment, reckless endangerment, second-degree child neglect, and one count of driving on a suspended license. The incident had occurred this past May when Jones was given a citation for her actions. She was not indicted by the grand jury until June 16.
In May, police were dispatched to the parking area in front of the Sunblaze Tanning salon at 2:40 p.m. after a concerned witness had called 911 in response to seeing the children in the car.
Officer Rian Hamby of Portland Police arrived on the scene to discover both children sweating and screaming in the Dodge Caravan minivan with all of the windows rolled up. Hamby stated in his official report that the boy was “soaked in sweat,” and that he could feel “heat radiating from [the child] through his bullet proof vest.”
According to court documents, Hamby was in the process of removing the children from the minivan when Jones exited the building. Initially, Jones claimed that she had left the children in the vehicle with their mother. Eventually, she later admitted that she had lied to the officer because she was scared and had left them unattended.
Department of Human Services reported that the mother of the children had been at work all day.
During the initial hearing, Judge Karin Immergut of Multnomah County Circuit Court has ordered that Jones have no unsupervised contact with children and that she is not allowed to work as a nanny. Jones’ next hearing is scheduled for August 15.
Jones’ neighbors are stating that they are surprised, but disgusted.
According to neighbor Shellsea Durbecq:
“That’s somebody’s kid, life or death, why leave somebody in a car. I can’t believe that happened.”
This story was originally reported by KOIN6 News.
For the common sense challenged that seem to consistently raise the bar of stupidity to a whole new level, let’s go through this one more time.
- NEVER LEAVE YOUR CHILD, OR PET, UNOCCUPIED IN YOUR VEHICLE. It doesn’t matter if the windows are up or down, or if it is a hot day or a cold day, or if you park in the shade or the sun. If you are a bystander that finds a child or pet alone in a car, do not hesitate for a second to get help immediately. Call 911, or break into the vehicle if you have to, but DO NOT shrug it off and think someone else will take care of it!
- It takes seconds to minutes — not minutes to hours. According to Christopher Haines, DO, director of pediatric emergency medicine at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in Philadelphia:
“On a day that is just 72 degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature [inside a car] can increase by 30 to 40 degrees in an hour, and 70 percent of this increase occurs the first 30 minutes.”
Temperature changes take as little as one to two minutes to rise from air-conditioned levels to ambient and as little as seven minutes to reach 104 degrees. In the opinion of Medical experts, temperatures exceeding 104 degrees can lead to death or serious injury for the occupants. - As of June 25, there have been 13 children to die of heatstroke in 2014. Of the 606 children to die of heatstroke in a vehicle between the years of 1998 to 2013, 108?of those children were intentionally left behind in the vehicles by adults.
- What sort of pain or symptoms will your child go through as they die from heat stroke? Throbbing headache; dizziness and light-headedness; lack of sweating despite the heat; red, hot, and dry skin; muscle weakness or cramps; nausea and vomiting; rapid heartbeat, which may be either strong or weak; rapid, shallow breathing; behavioral changes such as confusion, disorientation, or staggering; seizures; unconsciousness. These are all standard symptoms as the brain slowly dies off from lack of oxygen while being cooked alive.
Would a video help make it clearer for you?
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