Benjamin Seitz was fifteen months old when his father buckled him into his car seat on a hot summer’s day in Connecticut. It was really hot that day, in fact the temperature hit a maximum of 31 degrees at some point.
On his way to work Benjamin’s dad Kyle Seitz was meant to drop him off at day care but instead he stopped to get a coffee thinking that he had already dropped his son off. The arrest warrant for Seitz is chilling in its detail as it explains that his wife saw his car in the car park at the coffee shop as she was taking her kids to holiday Bible school but she thought nothing of it because it’s not uncommon for him to stop for coffee after he has dropped his son at day care. The warrant goes on in more aching family detail describing how Seitz’s wife and two daughters came to surprise him for lunch but he couldn’t go because he was too busy, instead he got into his car and went to get a quick sandwich. Then at around 5pm he drove to the day care centre to pick up his son.
One cannot even begin to imagine the thoughts, images and sheer terror that crossed his mind when he was told that Benjamin had not been there that day.
Seitz ran outside. According to a the arrest warrant he shrieked and grabbed the limp child, trying to shake him awake.
“Oh, my God,” he cried returning 15-month-old Benjamin to the car seat so he could rush to the emergency room.
“Are you OK?” asked one of the mums who witnessed the scene in the parking lot of the day care centre
“No,” the sobbing Seitz answered, hurrying off in the car towards Danbury Hospital.
Benjamin Seitz was pronounced dead at 6pm, the official cause of his death was hyperthermia.
Kyle Seitz turned himself in to police after learning there was a warrant for his arrest. He has been charged with criminally negligent homicide, which is punishable by a maximum one year in prison. He will reappear in court on 21 November.
It’s not even worth going through the judgment and holier-than-thou assertions that “good parents don’t forget their kids in the car”, because clearly they do. There is nothing at all to suggest that Kyle Seitz was nothing but a caring, loving and attentive father. In fact until recently he had been stay-at-home dad while his wife was at work. They were a regular family like yours and mine. And Kyle Seitz thought that he had dropped his son at day care on the morning of 7 July, the day his son died.
I can’t imagine facing my husband after learning of the death of my child. To be honest I can’t imagine facing getting out of bed, or even opening my eyes. But Benjamin’s mum Lindsey Rogers-Seitz knows that in reality you do have to stand up, get out of bed and face the day – especially when you have two daughters, aged 6 and 8. Rogers-Seitz also knows that her husband is a good father and a loving man and made the worst mistake that any person can make, a mistake that will live with them for the rest of their days and beyond. She knows that her child has died and that no amount of finger pointing and blame can ever bring him back or undo the love she holds for him. Instead Rogers-Seitz has channeled her grief, her sadness and her passion into a blog that you cannot read without crying and is now an advocate in raising awareness of the dangers of leaving children in hot cars.
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Lindsey started reading anything she could about child heatstroke in cars. She talked to nonprofit advocacy groups and read all she could that the experts had written about “Forgotten Baby Syndrome”. Remember, just like you and me she could never understand that anybody would forget about their baby in the car, but she knows now that it happens. And her family is not the first family affected.
Kelly Wallace writes for CNN ” She learned about failed attempts to include a provision in previous legislation back in 2007, which would require that cars include some way to remind drivers about passengers in the back when the car is turned off and the driver leaves the vehicle. She wondered why there isn’t a law like that on the books now. Rogers-Seitz, who’s a lawyer, talked with her husband about making their family’s new mission the push for action against child vehicular heat stroke.
“He’s an engineer, so we would sit together and he has his notepad, and he’s like drawing out ideas for devices of things that could be developed, and I’m sitting here looking at the legal stuff. And we just kind of came together and said, you know, together as a family we’d like to do this,” she said.
She has since even drafted a bill, which she calls Benjamin’s Bill, and is using it as she reaches out to U.S. senators and representatives about options to consider. Her bill includes ideas such as having the Department of Transportation convene roundtable discussions with everyone from the automobile and car seat industries, to child safety advocates and victims, to academic and medical professionals.
She also wants to see more funding for research and development for technology that would detect a child in the rear seat when the driver leaves the car.”
But it is the first entry on her blog that contains the words every person needs to read before they rush to judge her
Lying in bed last night, I began realizing what an integral role the press has in deciding what “the story” will be. The truth is that there is a bigger picture out there – an ongoing, political and intellectual debate about the history of these efforts to elicit change and how to go about it in the future – and I would hope that citizens would be just as interested in that as the local, sensationalized story. It saddens me that local media outlets are still stuck on “Ridgefield details” – is that story divisive (do we really need that type of thing now – it still hurts my heart)? Does it stir the pot enough to sell papers or website clicks? Maybe. But, I ask that we move beyond the sensationalization of the events of July 7th to deal with the real issues at hand – that will continue to affect hundreds of more children in the future if nothing is done. Did I forgive Kyle? Yes. Was it a horrible, traumatic day? Yes. We will always grieve that day…but we need to move forward to the bigger discussion right now. No discussion of his actions that day – it’s not about that. And, we have a working relationship with all local and state officials involved – and I will continue to give deference and respect to the privacy of the processes they are going through right now. I refuse to discuss the big sensationalization of the day – charges or statistics? That’s not the point. This isn’t about that – if it were, we surely would have remained quiet and holed up in our house.
In an interview yesterday, I talked ad nauseam about why we were speaking and pubic awareness: I got one sentence at the end –
“Since that time, Rogers-Seitz has kept her silence to maintain a point of privacy during the mourning period, but she chose to speak Tuesday because Thursday is National Heat Stroke Prevention Day.”
I’ve maintained my silence because for three weeks my mind couldn’t form words for these events or our emotions but also to respect the state processes going on at this time. The title “Mother Mourns Child, Defends Husband.” I am not discussing my husband’s ongoing state issues in the media, nor did I. If by saying I love him and forgive him and that we are a healthy family unit moving forward and that he is a wonderful father – then I guess I did defend him. But, I did not defend or discuss any events of July 7th related to him, nor will I…at this time. One day, but we respect all parties involved right now. My grieving as a mother – what that is like – yes, this can reach others to make them see how quickly the unimaginable happens and why they should care about this issue – but nothing else. Not now.
I wish the entire family strength and think of them, their sadness, their pain and their lifetime of grief and I wish them love. And as we enter the hottest months in Australia I continue to hope that no one amongst us ever has to deal with such an awful tragedy.
These stories always send a chill down my spine. It could happen to any of us. I think of these stories all the time when I’m out and about with my son. I think people like Benjamin’s family have gone through this awful tragedy so that the rest of us can learn from it hopefully without having to through the same pain. It’s not been in vain. I pray this will never happen to my family and my heart goes out to the families who go through this. It’s a reminder for us to slow down, be mindful when changes occur to our routine and…well, even then, who knows if our child’s safety is guaranteed. That’s what is so scary.