Keys in car. Car running. Car locked...
In all the excitement of the baby I almost forgot to post the following.
Keys in car. Baby in car. Cell phone in car. Car running. Car locked. Patti outside car.
Nope, not good.
Wednesday I was at the office in a meeting. I left my cell phone at my desk by mistake and when I got back I had two messages. Here is what I heard on the first one, left 1 hour earlier…
“Dave, I am on the top floor of Saint E’s parking garage and I locked my keys in the car and the car is running with Ethan in the car and I had to borrow someone’s cell phone because I left mine in the car and I need you to drive here and open up the car.”
“Oh (expletive deleted)” was my first thought when I looked at my watch.
Patti had a doctor’s appointment and Emily was in school so she only had the boy. She opened up the driver’s side door after putting Ethan in his car seat, started the car, and moved to the back to put his stroller in. After she shut the back door, the wind blew the driver’s door shut. Little did she know that she hit the lock button by mistake.
She was in quite a pickle. There was a woman who was nearby who let her use her phone. A minute or two after she called me, with Ethan crying in the car, she saw a maintenance guy shoveling snow nearby. She called out to him and said “my car is running and my son is locked in it, I need help.”
At this point of the story the question “why didn’t she just break the window” crossed your mind, dinnit? Well, I said the same thing. But that was not needed.
So the maintenance guy came running over, a second guy came and they called a security guy with special tools. It seems this happens all the time and they have special equipment that has to be registered with the local police. The two guys stayed with her while the security guy walked over. He used a pump type device to create a small gap in the door frame and slipped a wire in and unlocked the door. Patti said it was amazing how fast he was able to do it.
So no need to break the window, although if it were me, I might have done it anyway, just because. No need to feel bad. Patti was upset after but things happen. She said the maintenance and security guys were really nice and reassured her they would get in quick.
This is a lesson I learned 2 years ago when I did a similar thing with my truck in a blizzard but with groceries locked in a running vehicle, not a child. Now I roll down the window when I get out of a running car that is not parked in front of my house. It’s user error, but these things happen.