I've never met Wade Naramore, the suspended circuit judge from Garland County who's pleaded innocent to negligently leaving his 17-month-old son, Thomas, to die in a superheated car last July.
But, as a father and grandfather, I feel compassion for him and his family. I've also heard his mournful story too many times before, including the Benton County father who endured the same agonies a few years back when he went to work while forgetting to leave his young son (in the back seat) at day care. By the time he did remember, his son had died of heatstroke.
In the judge's case, a jury will decide his guilt or innocence of negligent homicide. Speaking from a personal view, I can't imagine the terrible price he and his wife already have paid, and for as long as they live. The news photo of Naramore as they arrived at the courthouse last week captured his profound despair that needed no words.
I recall writing at the time of the Benton County child's death how relatively simple it would be to equip every child safety seat with a sensor paired with a smart key to remind the parent when the two are separated by more than a few feet.
In both of these tragedies, and similar others, these children's lives could have been saved by a simple reminder beep. The truth is, we've created a society where so many pressures weigh on our preoccupied minds that quiet or dozing children (out of sight and mind in the rear seat) can and often are unintentionally overlooked.
That's certainly not an excuse for something so horrendous. But it does legitimize the question raised by Naramore's attorney of whether this is a tragedy or a crime. However, the two aren't mutually exclusive.
As I've noted following similar tragedies, the parents or adults responsible for such fatal oversights already are sentenced to a lifetime of agonizing remorse. I doubt much justice would be served by the state inflicting further pain simply because it can.
Many can relate to the anguish the Naramores are experiencing as his June trial approaches. KidsandCars.org reports some 700 children have died in this way nationally since 1990.
I wouldn't call 700 an epidemic. But that's an awful lot of needless deaths of innocents, including a hospital CEO in Iowa who forgot her 7-month-old daughter was behind her as she hurried off to meetings; a foster mother in Southern California who left a 3-year-old girl in her SUV for 15 minutes when temperatures inside reached 108 degrees; a Colorado woman who left her 13-month-old son while she worked a shift in a fast-food restaurant; and a Texas mother who returned to her vehicle after working all day in a shopping mall to find the 5-month-old son she thought she'd dropped at day care was dead, even though the outside temperatures had been in the balmy 70s.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that when outside temperatures range from 80 to 100 degrees, the heat inside a vehicle parked in direct sunlight can rapidly soar to between 130 and 172 degrees. The interior temperature builds most rapidly in the first 15 minutes when a vehicle it is left in the sun.
If we will simply equip every infant seat with an effective alarm, for gosh sakes, this serious problem all but solves itself.
One special place
Most of you have heard by now that U.S. News and World Report ranked Fayetteville as the third best city in our nation to live, just behind Denver and Austin. That comes on the heels of Livability.com naming the city America's fourth best college town (and best in the SEC) in 2014.
It started me reflecting on my decision to come home to my native Ozarks and this unique community in 1995 as editor of the Northwest Arkansas Times. After spending much of my career in cities across America, none could offer the beauty and livability of Northwest Arkansas.
In 1995 Fayetteville's population was listed at nearly 53,000. That also was well before Fayetteville boasted of having an Olive Garden, a 14-screen mega theater, Target and Kohl's. Today, it reportedly approaches 77,000 as the state's fastest growing city.
Walton Arts Center, the region's cultural center on Dickson Street in the shadow of Old Main, was just in its third year when I arrived.
There was no "flyover" to directly connect College Avenue with the shopping sprawl below the Northwest Arkansas Mall. The only option for traffic was the interminable wait through the avenue's congested and dangerous intersection with Joyce Street.
Life is, indeed, change. Those who can't adapt are better off paddling out of the current into stiller pools. In Fayetteville's case, it's become all but impossible to avoid the rapids. Her secret's out in a big way.
In that case, and considering we live in such a magnificent and envied section of America, it strikes me folks are better off staying midstream and enjoying the ever-changing flow.
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Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at [email protected].
Editorial on 03/15/2016