If you accidentally drove your car off a bridge, into a river, and your child was strapped in the car seat in the back seat, could you save yourself before saving your child?

Was she related to Ted Kennedy?

Seriously, unless you are there you can’t know what happened. She might have been thrown clear, perhaps she thought that it was shallow water. Not many mothers would abandon a child knowingly.

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Oh, that’s mean

Ya, that’s unthinkable I agree. But people react strange during panic sometimes.

It’s very easy to say what you would do, when you have the luxury of a couple hours to think it over from the comfort of a desk chair. It’s very hard to do the same thing when it’s actually happening and the moment is uncertain.

I agree, hard to know how you will really react in a panic, but I would think you could have time to get your child out. Now, my mother-in-law would not be able to do it. She is terrified of drowning. She tells a story of my husband being really little and playing with his cars by the edge of a pool while on vacation. A car fell into the water and he just went in after it to the bottom of the pool. She stood there frozen. His brother, who was about 8 years old at the time, jumped in to save him.

I understand everything everyone was saying,and I have to agree. But I guess…I think I’m sure about myself, anyway. I’m pretty sure what I would do….The roof of the car ended up three feet under, and that doesn’t seem that far down to not at least try repeated attempts to get to the child. They didn’t say how mom got out….I would imagine through a window. But it was raining, so I would imagine she had to have had the presence of mind to roll down her window to get out….Well, like I said, there was a lot they didn’t tell us, I’m sure.
@JLeslie when my son was about 5 he was splashing about in the pool. I was reading pool side. I glanced up, and he was going down for the 3rd time in the deep end! “O crap!” Sayeth Mom!! I stayed fairly calm, climbed in and hauled him out. He was shaken up, needless to say. Then he said, in his little five-year-old voice, “I couldn’t even say ‘Mommy’...” I choked up!! Took all I had not to burst into tears in front of him! It took a very patient 45 minutes to get him to be OK with going back in the pool. Had to start in the warm, shallow jacuzzi. That kid got himself into more scrapes than any kid I’ve ever known

i would get my son out first

Well no idea about the specific story, and of course it’s possible that the woman either tried and couldn’t help (maybe she couldn’t unbuckle the seatbelt or something) or was just too shocked to think clearly. Of course most parents would drown trying to save their kid, I’m pretty sure I would.

We got into a pretty bad accident last December, and even in that millionth of a second when the car was flying off the road and I knew we’d crash and I was pretty sure we’d all die, I tried to steer it so that my side would get hit the most and my daughter’s side (back right) would get hit the least, hoping that perhaps she’d either survive or suffer minor injuries instead. I think it’s instinctive, and logically it’s the only thing on your mind constantly when you’re a parent. At least that’s how it works for me, I could never for one second forget my kid or not do my best to save her. So I’m just assuming that woman simply couldn’t do it.

@Jack79 That sounds so scary, I’m so glad you and your daughter are okay from the accident.

I’ve had this talk with my husband, because bridges+water=big fear of mine. I am a terrible swimmer, I can doggy paddle but not for extended periods. I know when I’ve talked about that scenario with my husband, if he were in the car his main goal is to save our children. He is a much stronger swimmer than me, and is better in stressful situations that involve our son. I can handle it happening to anyone else, but when it’s my kid I completely shut down and panic
If I were in that situation, I would try my best. I doubt I could let the car sink and then try to escape, I’d probably grab my son and get the hell out.

I can’t judge anyone in that situation though. Who the hell knows what happened in that car, and what the mother tried to do. Maybe she wanted to be sure to secure a way out before grabbing her son. It’s not my place to say anything because I’ve never been in that horrifying situation.
My gut instinct is to say I’d do all I could to save my son. I would do anything for him. Like @jack79 said, it’s really always in the back of a parents mind..you even do little things every day to protect them that probably seem minor but they mean a lot.

@casheroo well as you probably know by now we were physically unscathed, but of course we’re in no way “ok”. Other events make me sometimes feel it would have been best for everyone if we’d just died in that crash.

But yeah, I think parents instinctively try to protect that children. If that mother really was a normal parent, it must have been immensely terrifying to just stand there and not be able to do anything. I’ve also been in a similar situation (luckily a false alarm that lasted all of 3 minutes) and it is the worst thing that could ever happen to you. Come to think of it, being a parent is so scary: my daughter started her life with an operation that could have left her either dead or handicapped, then got kidnapped twice, molested on several occasions and was in that car crash, not to mention the two times I simply lost her – the one I mentioned before was the scary one because I thought she’d been kidnapped again, whereas the other time she was simply hiding and I knew I’d find her sooner or later. Is it supposed to be this hard? Or am is this the payback for all those times I gave my parents a scare by coming home too late or riding a motorbike too fast?

I can guarantee you I would die trying. I’ve already saved my drowning niece while everyone else froze and shut down. Then again, I’m not afraid of water. I am very afraid of fire but I’m 99% sure I would run into a burning house to save my child. It almost makes me ill to admit there is a 1% chance I wouldn’t… I could never live with myself if I didn’t try.

@jabarimommy Me too. Or die trying.

@Jack79 Just the fact that it wasn’t even mentioned that she tried to get her son out bothered me. All they said, was “She watched in horror as the car sank…” They didn’t say specifically that she couldn’t do something, and they didn’t say that she even tried. Just bugged me.

@casheroo I can’t judge either. Just something about the report bothered me!

@elijah My thoughts too. If I let my child drown, or stay in a burning house without even trying to do something…well, I guess I’d commit suicide on down the line. I might even kill myself even if I had done everything I could….

Yeah but you know the news…or at least the ones here, and I’m sure in the US it’s even worse: they’re trying to sell a product in order to make money. So “she watched in horror” makes a better story than “she actually tried to get her kid but couldn’t reach him so she went out the car and tried going to the back but then she ran out of breath, and she can’t swim that well anyway, and she went out to call for help”.

So true @Jack79

@Jack79 Actually, to your point…the dad recreated part of the rescue. He walked and slipped down the bank, and said, “Then I waded in here….” and the commentators voice- over broke in right there and said, all excited, “As he DOVE in the icy water…..!!” I just think if she DID try to save the kid it was a huge omission not to mention it. It really bugged me for some reason!

I would save my child first. There really is no need for further explanation on this, at least as far as I’m concerned.

you unrestrain yourself immediately to save the child. get the child to safety within your human power. i’d give my life for my children. if i perish, i perish.

Anyone reading this story of sound mind would say that they would do all they can to save their child. As would they say that they would never watch any drowning child, amongst a group of people, without trying to save it.

Yet people in stress react differently and bystanders in groups are notoriously inadequate at helping anyone. I know we do not want to be judgmental, but let’s realize that most of just cannot know what we will do, all we can say now is how we would like to react.

In The Netherlands, we recently had an incident, in which a police officer caused an accident that made another car drive into a water filled ditch. There were other bystanders and there were even people using their camera phones to film the incident. The synopsis: nobody saved the drowning man in the car and in the end there were five people, including a police officer that were full of shame, yet incapable of explaining why they didn’t act.

@whitenoise your story makes me go back to the woman might have not gone back in because she was aware her husband was nearby. Just like the people in your story saw a police officer, I’m thinking they saw him as the best person to evaluate the situation and react. I agree you never know how you will react. I was “mugged” in NYC (not with a weapon, long story I won’t tell the whole thing and bore you ) and I was suprised that it took me several seconds to start yelling, I was in such a state of shock. You just never know.

@JLeslie But…I don’t know that there was any way for her to know her husband even saw the accident. He was in front, and he just happened to be looking in his rear view mirror when it happened. The story also made it sound like it was just a coincidence that he was there. IDK.

@whitenoise That’s awful. No excuse for the cop. He’s supposed to be trained and prepared to intervene in situations like that. However, there is a difference, I think, between risking your life for a total stranger, and risking your life for your child. I’m ½ Dutch, BTW! Family from Texil. Pleased ta meetcha!

@Val123 Ok, maybe I am confused and also not being clear. What I meant was once she was out maybe she saw her husband there. I did not mean to “excuse” her from not trying to get the child out in the first place, but that she did not go back in to get the child might have been because her husband was there.

@JLeslie Yeah…I could see that. There were just so many questions in the story that went unanswered….

There is not one single iota of doubt in my mind, I would save my kids or die trying. I would do the same for my boyfriend.

@Val123 pleased ta meetcha as well

@whitenoise :)

@whitenoise I’m sorry! I crossed you out some how! I didn’t mean, really!!! Hmmm. I need to figure out how I did that….

Don’t have a kid so Ill try to save myself :3