Each year, there are a number of tragic news stories about “hot car deaths”–too many really. A few friends sent me this one, about Elena Petrizzi, who recently died after being forgotten in her father’s car, and so I thought I’d comment on it.
It was a similar story that first inspired Ismail’s character in my novel, Six Metres of Pavement. I wondered how a father in this situation could manage to go on with his life after making the absolute worst mistake a person can make.
Through my continued reading on the subject, I came to understand that such a mistake is a truly human one, a mistake caused often by sleep deprivation, distraction, schedule changes. None of us would ever want to see ourselves making such a fatal error, but any of us could. I don’t think the majority of these cases are of a criminal nature, or that parents should be charged with manslaughter, as Lucio Petrizzi was. My heart goes out to he and his family as they recover from this heartbeak.