GILBERT, AZ -- Lyn Balfour admits she was always one of those parents.
She could never understand how someone could accidentally forget their child somewhere. To her, it just didn't make sense.
But in March 2007, she realized it could happen to her.
"There's no worse dread. There's no worse fear," Balfour said during a phone interview.
"It was sheer panic," she said. "Sheer panic. I don't think I breathed the one hundred feet when I ran - sprinted - to my car to check and still didn't believe it," she said.
Balfour, who now lives in Virginia, said she had started the day dealing with several out-of-the-ordinary circumstances.
She had been up most of the night with her sick 9-month-old son, Bryce.
In the morning, she had to drive her husband to work, and her baby was extra quiet in the backseat.
He was sitting in a car seat out of her view because she was carrying an extra car seat that day.
She never considered any of these changes in her daily routine would make her forget to drop off her child at an in-home day care before she got to work.
Several hours later, she finally talked to her day care provider over the phone, and the woman asked Balfour about how Bryce was feeling.
The day care provider, according to Balfour, had assumed that Balfour stayed home with Bryce all day because he was feeling sick.
After a few moments, things finally clicked.
She had forgotten Bryce in the back seat.
Valley dad invents vehicle warning device for parents"The whole day flashed through my mind," she said. "That whole morning of events, and I remember dropping him off," she said.
She later discovered the memory she had was false.
Bryce overheated in the car and died.
Balfour said the high temperature that day was only 66 degrees.
"I assure you that there's not a day that goes by that I don't think about my son and think about the memories of that day and the fact that I was responsible for that," she said.
Balfour said she was charged with second degree murder, and later the charge was reduced.
She said she was acquitted of the charges in 2008, and now she belongs to a support group of other parents who've suffered a similar loss.
The are all connected to a group called
kidsandcars.org.
The organization supports child safety in and around cars.
According to Janette E. Fennell, the founder of the group, there are current efforts being made by kidsandcars.org to get new legislation requiring seatbelt sensors in the back seats of cars.
Fennell explained backseat seatbelt sensors like the ones in the front seat that ding when one forgets to wear his or her seatbelt.
She said if car manufacturers were required to include the same types of sensors in the back seats, that would lead the way for other technology development including equipment capable of identifying whether a parent has forgotten a child in the back seat when they turn off their vehicle.
"I know that if parents begin to baby proof their cars in a manner in which we baby proof our homes, then this will stop or or significantly reduce," said Balfour.
That's why Emery Ramos, a Gilbert resident, is working on a new invention to help parents remember their children in the back seat.
"Any time I hear of an incident of a child being left or anything happening to a child," he said, "it really hits home, an dI figure there is something that I could do to help out."
Ramos, a mechanic, said he placed an after-market horn underneath the hood of his mom's car and wired it to the child's seatbelt in the back seat.
The contraption is also wired to the front, driver's door.
He's still working out some of the bugs, but ideally, when the parent opens the door to get out of the vehicle, the horn will sound if the child is still buckled into the backseat.
The horn stops making noise when the child is unbuckled.
Ramos said he hasn't developed a name for his invention, but he's hoping one day it will help a parent and a child.
Balfour, meanwhile, said she applauds anyone who tries to develop any device that could help save a life.
