My baby died in a hot car after I forgot him – seeing his lifeless body will always haunt me, I can never forgive myself
FINISHING up her day in the office Raelyn Balfour noticed she had a missed call from her child minder.
Concerned the carer needed advice settling her nine-month-old son, Bryce, Raelyn dialled the number.
“Thanks so much for returning the call, I just wanted to check how little Bryce is recovering from his cold?” she says.
“What do you mean? Bryce is with you.” Raelyn replied.
But her blood ran cold when her childminder explained to Raelyn that she had never dropped her little boy off and she had assumed the mum had kept him at home because of his cold.
Fear consumed Raelyn, now 52, as she raced to her car trying to recall her morning.
When she gets to her car Raelyn’s world changed forever.
“I got to the car and my nine-month-old son was still strapped into his car seat,” she tells Fabulous in this exclusive interview.
“He had been there all day. He wasn’t moving or breathing.
“I was hysterical. I screamed for help and for an ambulance.
“I started giving him CPR until the ambulance arrived and my baby was rushed to hospital.
“I was wracked with hysteria, it felt like I was living in a nightmare.”
Despite all attempts to revive her son, Bryce was tragically declared dead at the hospital shortly after.
Executive Raelyn, now lives in San Antonio, Texas, with husband Jarrett, 45, a business executive and their four children Christopher 31, Braiden 16, Isabella, 15 and Chase 14.
The family were living in Charlottesville, Virginia in March 2007 when a then 36-year-old Raelyn had driven to work and forgotten to drop Bryce off at the babysitters as she normally did every morning.
Bryce died after being left in the car for seven and half hours.
While the temperature outside had been a relatively mild 18 degrees, it was hyperthermia that killed Bryce.
Police said the temperature inside the car could have reached 36.6 degrees in just forty minutes, more than enough to kill a baby.
Raelyn says the guilt she felt was inconceivable and something she battles with 17 years later.
“I go through that memory of seeing my son not breathing every day,” she says.
“No parent should have to deal with that. No one should have to try to save their child’s life from their own terrible mistake.
“I live in hell every day. I live in pain everyday remembering the horror of what happened – the grief and the loss and the knowledge of what I had forgotten.
“It’s a nightmare you never escape from.”
Raelyn says that not only does she have to live with her own guilt but with the constant judgement she receives from strangers.
“I knew it was an accident but no one believes me,” she says.
“I had served in the military and have always taken such care in everything I did.
“I was not someone who would do this.”
The day Bryce was buried Raelyn was arrested and charged with second degree murder with a potential life sentence of 40 years.
“I couldn’t even grieve Bryce’s death, instead I had to prove I hadn’t killed him,” she says.
“Everyone assumed I was a bad mother or that I was abusing him but that simply wasn’t the case.
“I distinctly remember dropping off Bryce at the babysitter’s before driving to work that day.
“Then I worked all day confident in the knowledge he was safe with the childminder, I was utterly convinced he was there.”
Raelyn’s legal team explained to the jury that she had suffered a false memory.
This is when someone either remembers an event that didn’t happen, or remembers it differently from how it actually did.
In Raelyn’s case experts testified that because dropping off Bryce was so routine, her brain filled in the gap that day.
According to Raelyn there were a series of events that threw her off her routine.
“Byrce had been poorly with a cold, and I was sleep deprived from being up with a sick child all night,” she says.
“My husband put the new car seat in behind my driver’s seat rather than behind the passenger’s seat where it normally was out of my line of view.
“Bryce’s diaper bag wasn’t in its usual spot in the front passenger seat, but moved to the back because Jarrett was in the passenger’s seat and I dropped him at work.
“His nappy bag would have been a trigger for me if he was still in the car. It wasn’t there for me to see like normal.”
Raelyn’s brain calculated the unusual stop she made to drop off her husband, as her usual stop to drop off Bryce.
“That horrible morning, I drove to work, parked the car, and walked into the office,” she recalls.
“I didn’t realise Bryce was still in the car, I wouldn’t have heard him either as he had fallen asleep in his carseat.”
British psychologist James Reason discovered what is now called the term the “Swiss Cheese Model” in 1990 to explain how a catastrophic failure like Raelyn forgetting Bryce happened.
Dr Reason’s theory uses Swiss cheese slices being piled on top of each other.
The holes represent small, potentially insignificant weaknesses. Things will totally collapse only rarely, when those holes align breaching a person’s decision making and memory creating a devastating failure.
“I am not trying to offer excuses or gain sympathy. This is just what happened”, Raelyn adds.
Raelyn was ultimately acquitted by a jury in January 2008 but it provided little comfort to the mum.
The only time I will be able to make amends properly is when I see him in heaven
Raelyn Balfour
“Being acquitted didn’t change anything for me,” she says.
“My world had fallen apart but I was very lucky that my husband Jarrett supported me through it.”
Raelyn and Jarrett put their lives back together and went on to have Braiden, Isabella and Chase.
“Bryce would have been 18 this month, as a mother I cannot explain the grief and sadness I felt this year on his birthday,” says Raelyn.
“The day he died I remember holding my little boy one last time in the hospital to say goodbye.
“I made a promise to my baby that his death would not be in vain.”
As a result, Raelyn works tirelessly sharing her story to raise awareness about car safety for children and babies.
The 9 red flags of heat stroke in your child
Heat stroke is a potentially life-threatening side effect of getting hot.
It happens when someone gets so hot their body can’t control their temperature.
In children the symptoms can include:
1. Becoming floppy and sleeping
2. Hot, flushed and dry skin
3. A headache, feeling dizzy or becoming confused and restless
4. Fast breathing and heartbeat
5. Seizures
6. Little or no sweating
7. Body temperature rises to 40.5C or higher
8. Loss of consciousness or passing out
9. Get worse quickly and become unresponsive
What should you do?
- Ddial 999 IMMEDIATELY, or get someone else to
- Cool them down
- Quickly move them into a cooler environment
- Remove their outer clothing
- Wrap them in a cold, wet sheet
- Keep pouring water over them
- Keep cooling them while waiting for help to arrive
- If their temperature returns to normal and they no longer feel hot to touch, you can stop cooling them
Source: NHS
She campaigns with US charity Kids in Cars which educates people about leaving children in cars unattended even for short periods of time.
Raelyn wants everyone to know that this can happen to anyone.
“What happened to me was the most extreme situation,” she says.
“Distractions, a lack of sleep and a breach from routine resulted in a nightmare I will never wake up from.
“The UK was hit by a heatwave this week, and its critical people never leave their child alone in any vehicle.
“Babies like Bryce cannot regulate their body temperature like teenagers and adults can.
“A cool temperature is as life threatening as scorching summer sun.
“I paid the ultimate price and I will never have real peace again, I am begging people to be careful.
“The only time I will be able to make amends properly is when I see him in heaven.
“All I know is every parent I educate to be more aware is one more baby who is safer in Bryce’s memory.”