On August 13, 2026, in Madisonville, Kentucky, USA, a 61-year-old doctor, Stacey Fazenbaker, forgot her 10-month-old granddaughter, Scottie Gwyn Crowell, in the back seat of her Volvo. The little girl remained inside the vehicle for more than eight hours in sweltering heat, with temperatures exceeding 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46 degrees Celsius). By the time the grandmother realized her mistake, it was too late: the baby had died from extreme hyperthermia. This case, which has made headlines around the world, is not an isolated incident, but rather the tip of the iceberg of a recurring tragedy that claims the lives of dozens of children every year.
In Spain, on May 20, 2026, in Brión (A Coruña), a father forgot his two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Sara, in the car while driving to work. The girl was found in cardiac arrest and died despite resuscitation attempts. Just a year earlier, in Valls (Tarragona), another child of the same age died after spending more than four hours inside his father's vehicle during a heat wave. These cases, along with those that occurred in Italy, Canada, and the United States, reveal a common pattern: the forgetting is not intentional, but rather a memory lapse known as forgotten baby syndrome , which is triggered by stress, lack of sleep, or changes in routine.
Psychologist David Diamond of the University of South Florida has been researching this phenomenon for years. According to his studies, the human brain has two types of memory: autopilot memory (controlled by the basal ganglia) and prospective memory, which plans new or different actions (governed by the hippocampus and prefrontal networks). When a person performs a routine task, such as driving to work, autopilot kicks in and can suppress prospective memory , causing the driver to completely forget they have a baby in the back seat. Stress, lack of sleep, and recent schedule changes increase the risk of this lapse.
Babies are especially vulnerable to heat: their thermoregulation system is immature, and their bodies overheat up to five times faster than an adult's. In a closed car, the temperature can rise 20 degrees in just 10 minutes, turning the vehicle into a lethal oven. Hyperthermia causes dehydration, cell damage, seizures, and ultimately, multiple organ failure and cardiac arrest. In the United States, a study published in Paediatric Child & Health in 2019 estimated that an average of 37 children die each year from this cause, and that 55% of these cases are due to unintentional oversights by caregivers.
The tragedies of Brión and Valls in Spain are not unique. In Italy, on July 18, 2024, a one-year-old girl died in Marcon (Venice) after her father forgot her in the car while he went to work. The newspaper La Repubblica reported that 11 such deaths had been recorded in Italy alone. In Canada, in 2018, six-month-old Cassius Perlot died in Montreal when his father left him in his office parking lot; the outside temperature was only 25 degrees Celsius, but inside the vehicle it was enough to kill him. In the United States, cases like that of Sophia Rayne Cavaliero in Texas (2012) or the McDaniel twins in South Carolina (2021) show that no family is immune to this mistake , regardless of their educational or professional level.
In Texas, Sophia's mother, Kristie Reeves, founded Ray Ray's Pledge and successfully lobbied for a law requiring hospitals to educate new parents about the dangers of leaving a child in a car. In 2012, Kristie became a mother again to twins and used an Android app to monitor them, creating a nearly impenetrable safety net. Her story exemplifies how pain can be transformed into prevention.
Italy is the only country in Europe that has legislated on this matter. Since November 7, 2019, it has been mandatory to use anti-abandonment devices in child car seats for children under four years old. These systems, which are usually weight sensors placed in the seat, emit an audible and visual alarm when the driver moves away from the vehicle with the child inside. The most advanced models send a notification to the adult's phone and, if there is no response, alert other pre-configured contacts. The European Parliament has recommended promoting their use but has not established common regulations.
Some car manufacturers, such as Volvo and General Motors, already incorporate rear seat occupant detection systems, like the Rear Seat Reminder , which alerts the driver when the engine is turned off. However, these systems rely on the adult looking at the dashboard, which doesn't always happen. That's why experts emphasize the need to combine technology with simple habits: leaving your phone or purse in the back seat, always opening the rear door before leaving the car, or establishing a check-in routine with daycare or school.
Psychologist Anaïs Perlot, Cassius's mother, has become an activist after her son's death. In an interview, she confessed that she was furious with her husband for a long time, but finally understood that it was an accident. Now she dedicates her life to raising awareness among other parents: “It’s important that they know it can happen to them. I never would have imagined something like this before it happened to us .” Her testimony, along with that of other families, demonstrates that societal judgment does not help prevent these tragedies; education and technology do.
Ultimately, the death of a baby forgotten in a car is one of the most preventable and devastating tragedies. Cases in Spain, Italy, and the rest of the world share a common pattern: a responsible adult, a disrupted routine, and a fatal lapse of memory. The solution lies in combining public awareness, the implementation of mandatory safety systems, and the adoption of habits that make it virtually impossible to forget a child in the back seat. Because, as statistics show, no one is immune to this mistake, and a child's life should not depend on an adult's memory.