Why it is happening repeatably? Could we put a stop on it…

TOBY’S STORY

Toby James Riley was born July 10th 2007. He was a beautiful, healthy baby. He has two older siblings, Harmony 8, and Odin 2. In the 13 months we had him he was always so happy. He never cried, and I never let him out of my sight. I was always holding him. I even breastfed him until the day we lost him.

August 25th 2008 we were camping with friends. It was our third day there. I had been a little worried about taking them but we were all having a great time. That morning I was saying how perfect everything was. I was so happy. We even had decided we would come back the following weekend.

I was holding Toby while I watched my other 2 children get in our car. Their dad was about to get in to go get ice. Toby was acting hungry so I put him down in a fenced in area right in front of our friends trailer with their little boy. I looked over my shoulder into the car at my other children and they were both in their seats. Jason was on the other side of the car finishing up with something. The car wasn’t running. I turned my back for 10 seconds to get the bottle.

Next thing I hear is screaming. I turn around and see the car backing up. I start yelling to stop. I see are friend in the driver seat. I keep telling him to stop. He does and I ask were all the kids are at. As I’m asking I look down and see Toby in front of the back tire. In my mind I’m thinking it can’t be him, he’s behind me with are friends son. I picked him up and started screaming that he’s dead. Then it seemed like he took a breath. We raced to the front of the camp site where they called the ambulance. I waited in the office holding him trying to help him breath while he was bleeding from his nose and mouth. Someone came up and checked his eyes and I could tell by the look on their face it wasn’t good. He wasn’t responding at all. The ambulance came and they care flighted him to the hospital. We couldn’t go with so we had to drive the 4 hours to the hospital. When we got there he had been dead for 3 hours. He was gone.

I guess in that ten seconds he had climbed out of the fence while my 2 year old got in front and hit the shift putting the car in reverse. Their dad had accidentally left the keys in the car. He never does that. Our friend saw the car rolling back and had jumped in to stop it. No one saw Toby.

I wanted to post my story in hopes that other parents can relate who have lost their beautiful children and together maybe we can stop this from happening. I see parents leave their children in the car all the time. We are not bad parents. There were four adults right there. A few seconds is all it takes and it can’t be undone.