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Posted by: Cinderella

Grandmother, 97, left in sweltering car




http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1153087815501&call_pag eid=968332188492&col=968793972154&t=TS_Home



A 97-year-old woman is recovering in a Burlington hospital after she was left alone in a sweltering vehicle for almost an hour during the worst heat wave of summer while her family went shopping.
With criminal charges laid against her daughter and granddaughter, Phyllis Arnott can't return to her home.
"We do love her. It's not like we meant to do it," her granddaughter, Kimberly Bouclair, 36, said yesterday. "It was an accident ... we just didn't think."
A passerby called 911 Saturday afternoon at about 4 p.m. after noticing Arnott alone in the back seat of an SUV for more than 30 minutes in the Wal-Mart parking lot on Dundas St. at Appleby Line.
Arnott was incoherent and dehydrated by the time emergency crews arrived, police said. They estimate the temperature inside the vehicle, which had its front windows open about eight centimetres, was close to 50C.
"We feel bad about dogs being left in cars. This was a person," said Halton police Sgt. Tim Fredo. "They're both cruel and inhumane acts."
Arnott was taken to Joseph Brant Hospital, where she'll stay until social services can find her a new home. Her condition was improving yesterday.
Her daughter, Bonnie Bouclair, 60, and Kimberly Bouclair have been charged with failing to provide the necessities of life.
They aren't allowed to contact Arnott, who they've taken care of for 16 years.
At their Acton home yesterday, both were apologetic and eager to be reunited with Arnott, who is less than 5 feet tall and 100 pounds.
"She'll die if we can't bring her home," Bonnie Bouclair said, angered that other shoppers "didn't mind their business."
"It's not like we left her in the car to die."
The women were out for a drive when Arnott began complaining of a headache, they said. The Bouclairs said they went into Wal-Mart to buy some headache tablets and left Arnott in the back seat with the front windows slightly open.
"I didn't expect to be that long, Bonnie Bouclair said. After the pharmacy, the women said, they shopped for some dog food, clothes and shoes.
"Then we got held up in the lineup," Bonnie Bouclair said, arguing they couldn't have been more than 30 minutes. But police estimate it may have been closer to an hour.
"We thought she would be okay," Kimberly Bouclair said. "We didn't realize it would get so hot."
Outside in the steamy parking lot, a passerby noticed Arnott in distress. The senior is mobile enough to get out of a car by herself, but Bonnie Bouclair said she locked the doors because she didn't want her mother, whose eyesight is poor, to fall.
Seniors, like children, are very susceptible to the heat. Extreme heat inside a car can cause brain damage or even death in a short time. It can take less than 15 minutes for a car's temperature to rise more than 20C when the outside temperature is around 30C, research indicates.
"In that heat, five or six minutes could probably (cause) a medical distress," Fredo said.
Paramedics were loading Arnott into the ambulance when her family came out. They haven't been allowed to see or speak with her since.
Arnott will be scared that she can't come home, said Bonnie Bouclair, who yesterday delivered medication to police.
The two women are scheduled to appear in court Aug. 25.

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Posted by: SOT

In some countries that's how they make beef jerky...

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Posted by: brk120

Quote:

Originally Posted by SOT_II In some countries that's how they make beef jerky...

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