How could you leave a child in a hot car? It's called 'Fatal Distraction'

This is the tragedy that brought Forgotten Baby Syndrome to the world's attention as a legitimate reason why a loving caretaker might forget a child. 

After the tragic death of a toddler in Glenfield last week, there's been a public outpouring of grief for the father who left him in the car for hours.

There have also been a lot of questions about how such a mistake could be made by a loving parent.

Arikh Hasan was found dead in the back of a Toyota Corolla in Sydney's southwest last Thursday, as temperatures reached 34C.

The young boy's father, Newaz Hasan, was reportedly dropping his eldest son off at Glenfield Public School that morning, when he decided to get petrol before taking his younger son to childcare.

However, the father appeared to have forgotten his sleeping child in the back of the car and continued straight home instead of doing the childcare drop off.

Newaz then worked from home for the day, before collecting his eldest from school. It was upon opening the car door for his son to get in that he noticed.

A police spokesman said the boy had been in the car all day. The father has not been charged over the incident - because this tragedy is not an uncommon one, and there are legitimate reasons as to why they happen to the most attentive of parents.

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Arikh Hasan, three, was left in a car on Railway Parade in Glenfield, in Source: Facebook

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'Fatal Distraction' is not a crime: the Miles Harrison case

In 2002, American dad Todd Costello lost his baby son, Tyler, when he forgot the 9-month-old in the back of his car in his office parking lot.

In a 2009 interview with The Washington Post, in an article called, "Fatal Distraction: Forgetting a Child in the Backseat of a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime?", Todd and his wife, Melody, talked about what happened.

"On that morning," Todd says, "I had to make brief trips from building to building, and it took me past my car.

"But from that position, you couldn't see into the car. It was just a ball of windshield glare. I know that is a fact. But in my dreams, that scenario changes a little. I can see my son in the car. I wave, and I say, 'I'll be right back, Tyler'."

The Post article also talks about the experiences of other parents whose children suffered a similar fate. The guilt of the parents can be felt by the reader as their heartbreaking stories are told.

The article says, "An otherwise loving and attentive parent one day gets busy, or distracted, or upset, or confused by a change in his or her daily routine, and just... forgets a child is in the car."

And it insists it can - and has - happened to parents with varied backgrounds.

"In the last 10 years, it has happened to a dentist. A postal clerk. A social worker. A police officer. An accountant. A soldier. A paralegal. An electrician. A Protestant clergyman. A rabbinical student. A nurse. A construction worker. An assistant principal. It happened to a mental health counselor, a college professor and a pizza chef. It happened to a pediatrician. It happened to a rocket scientist."

When tragedy struck Miles Harrison, and he forgot his toddler son Chase in his car, he was charged with manslaughter. As a father, he was already destroyed.

But the prosecutor, who was a father himself, refused to accept he would ever forget his kids.

"I have to say no, it couldn't have happened to me. I am a watchful father."

Which really only means that to date, he'd been lucky to have not made an irreversible mistake.

Miles Harrison, 49, was an all-round American dad stereotype: hard working, easy going, loved his family. But on the fateful day, he was constantly dealing with problems at work... and forgot Chase in the car... for nine hours in summer.

After a traumatic case, he was eventually found not guilty; a verdict that simply meant not guilty in the eyes of the law law because there was no intent. For remainder of his life, he would nevertheless hold himself accountable for his son's death.

And so would many others.

Arikh Hasan was reportedly left in the hot car all day long. Source: Facebook

Public reaction to the Miles Harrison case

There was blinding outrage to the verdict, with Americans appalled that Harrison wasn't punished for the death of his son.

But David Diamond, a professor and memory expert, explained that the was simply human. He told The Post:

"The quality of prior parental care seems to be irrelevant [in these cases].

"The important factors that keep showing up involve a combination of stress, emotion, lack of sleep and change in routine, where the [brain] is trying to do what it’s supposed to do, and the conscious mind is too weakened to resist.

"What happens is that the memory circuits...  literally gets overwritten, like with a computer program. Unless the memory circuit is rebooted -- such as if the child cries, or, you know, if the wife mentions the child in the back - it can entirely disappear."

Arikh Hasan, three, pictured with his mother Marzia and father Newaz Arikh Hasan. Image: Facebook

RELATED: Baby locked in car works out own escape

A deviation from routine

More recently, in 2019, Diamond told CBS News, "We have kind of a brain autopilot system that allows us to go from point A to point B without thinking about it.

"It actually suppresses our awareness that the child is in the car.

"What is so tragic is that they think they've actually gone to the right location and that the child's been dropped off at daycare."

With last week's Glenfield tragedy, this could explain how the father's decision to get petrol before driving to daycare could have been what made him assume he'd already done the drop off.

The below stories explore how 'The Swiss Cheese model' of how a string of human errors can explain tragedies, and Forgotten Baby Syndrome, play a part in the deaths of these accidents.

I cried when I read about the boy left in the car... because I've done it too

Toddler dies in car after babysitter forgets to drop her at daycare

Originally published as How could you leave a child in a hot car? It's called 'Fatal Distraction'