A Stitch in Haste

A while back I blogged about the tragic story of a young boy mauled to death by his own family's dog (the original reports that it was a pit bull have been disputed on some blogs).

In that post I tried to focus on the conduct, not of the dog, but of the parent:

Maureen Faibish said she ordered Nicholas to stay in the basement while she did errands on June 3, the day he was attacked by one or both of the dogs. ... Nicholas apparently found a way to open the basement door.

Well, here's another horrible report of a lethally incompetent parent:

A 5-year-old Chilhowie, Va., girl was killed when she became trapped in a laundromat washing machine and her mother was unable to open the door in time to save her, officials said yesterday.
...
[Police Chief Dwayne] Sheffield said Hope's mother, Rebecca Billings Wagoner, had stepped outside the laundromat, leaving her daughter and the girl's 14-year-old half brother alone when the victim became trapped.
...
"To the best of my understanding, the cycle had nearly completed and there was indeed water in the machine," Sheffield said. "We're still trying to determine how long she'd been in there."

In other words, the mother left the children unattended for, by my best estimate, anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes. And it seems likely that she didn't just "step outside" (e.g., to smoke cigarettes), but clearly went somewhere — use your imagination where. The role of the 14-year old sibling is unknown.

In any case, what are we supposed to do now — ban laundromats? Pass laws requiring that laundromats be staffed at all times? Require washing machine manufacturers to install "panic buttons" inside the drum?

Expect one or more of those proposals to spring from this tragedy. We saw it before with kids and refrigerators.

As I blogged regarding the dog mauling: you can ban pit bulls, you can ban washing machines — how do you ban a jackass parent?

UPDATE #1: The lethal parent is suing the washing machine company that made the machine in which her five-year old child drowned. She claims that — get this — the machine started automatically without any quarters having been inserted. Sure, that happens to me all the time. It's amazing how often death and chutzpah go hand in hand.

UPDATE #2: Prosecutors dropped manslaughter charges against the girl's teenage half-brother even though videotape showed him putting the girl into the machine (the boy claims it was horseplay and not malicious). The question of whether the machine could have started without coins remains unresolved -- apparently the manufacturer has been sued before for similar occurrences but records show the machine in question had received a new coin counter before the accident.