The dangers of baggage carousels
 

Very sad accident in Spain when a 5 month odd was placed on a carousel that was not moving but somehow started moving.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/20/world/...html?hpt=hp_t2

It will sound harsh, but I have zero sympathy for the terminally (literally) stupid. The only hope is that the parent is prosecuted and jailed for manslaughter. It's the only way the stupid people learn. It's not an "accident". It was entirely foreseeable and preventable by not doing something so dumb.

So, just so we all understand, you think other 'stupid' people (presuming we buy the premise this person was stupid) will be smart enough to somehow see future news stories from Spain that the mother was put in jail, and the stupid will then be smart enough to not be stupid anymore???

Ok, makes perfect sense what you are saying...:rolleyes:

Very sad, but who the heck puts their kid on a baggage belt? Dumb, dumb, dumb!

Of course, I got to watch many tweens and teens climbing onto, and goofing off around, several baggage claim belts recently. I kept thinking of the scene in Mallrats where one character rants about a mom leaving her kid unsupervised on the escalator...

I think it's a safe bet the person who put their child on a luggage belt isn't one of life's little rocket scientists. And yes, something like a poor-victim-American-mother being prosecuted outside the US and sent to prison for it would make the news. I am, obviously, assuming that the other stupid people would be able to work out from the story that putting your kid on a luggage belt is a dumb move, but hey, maybe you're right and they're too dumb for even that. Would you prefer that the stupid people just kill their kids off due to their stupidity?

What I still don't get is how the kid was harmed.

I haven't seen a baggage conveyor that could harm the kid as was described.

She put the kid on the belt thinking it was a solid object, the system sensed baggage and started up. Why didn't the kid just go round and round on the belt? The belts are continuous, where is there a surface that could harm a kid? (I can easily see a kid being harmed if the system spit another bag out that hit the kid but that's not what is reported to have happened.)

Well, we don't know. Maybe, maybe not. None of us were there, and current media reports are conflicting (at the time of my posting this).

Depends on what other stories are working through the "news cycle". Could be lead story, but if a senator gets arrested with a tranny hooker or something it could be buried and get little coverage. Either way that would presume your "stupid" people actually are informed enough to watch/read the news then have it click in their "feeble minds" so they remember it after a long journey.

Well if they are stupid by definition, how is seeing the news going to make them "smart"? Again, how will your stupid folks remember?

How many people have been killed by luggage belts? Your prosecution of this woman would save how many lives you think?

I never made such an inane statement. We don't know the facts yet. On the surface it seems like a dangerous move, of course, but maybe the other child was doing something reckless that needed immediate attention which caused the mother to place the baby down triggering the belt? Maybe the woman was tired and just made a dumb tragic move?

'Tis very sad, whatever happened.

Not sure how putting the woman in jail is going to serve the citizens of Spain and the EU, nor the woman's other child, nor bring some form of justice for the dead child. Seems an odd concept that inv. manslaugther charges are warranted at this time when we know so little about the facts.

If stupidity were a crime, half the planet would be in jail (gaol).

At this point I would see them putting up a few more "danger" signs around the belts, and making sure they have the lights and sirens when they are about to start moving.

Sad, sad story.

From some stories I read (in Spanish, Italian and English media) it was for oversized bags, and the child got caught in the rollers "at the end" which caused massive bleeding. There is still debate on whether it was automated or not. The couple, when questioned by investigators, needed psychological assistance (understandably) so more info should come later.

My prayers go out to all involved. Sad stuff :(

Tired parent coming off a trip that was who knows how long is an invitation for more accidents.

This was an accident, and accidents can cause injury or death. However, not all accidents are manslaughter.

Prosecuting and locking the mother up is not going to be a useful lesson for anyone. Why make an almost-certainly grieving American mother suffer even more than she has and will suffer? Perhaps we should be prosecuting and locking up parents who give cooked meat to their children? It's entirely foreseeable and preventable that carcinogens are being consumed that way.

It is stupid to place a child on, or allow children to play with, baggage belts, but accidents do happen and not every wrongful action needs to be pursued by a prosecutor and result in a conviction in court.

That is not it. The baggage conveyor was probably started by a manual process there -- I'm almost certain of that, but that's how it used to be at this airport.

My bet is she was waiting for either a stroller or a car seat at the baggage conveyor for oversized luggage, and that has a terminating point as quite clearly also indicated in the article:

"The carousel for oversized luggage is a flat, black rubber-type belt that moves in only one direction, ending with a series of horizontal rollers that slow the luggage to a stop, for pickup. It's several feet long and passengers can stand on either side of it or at the receiving end, said the airport spokeswoman, who by custom is not identified."

Think of it like this:

______|||
|||||||||||
--------|||

This kind of arrangement isn't really unique in Europe or even parts of Asia, and this kind is even more common:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/striderv/3908945923/

I wouldn't be surprised if the airline's reluctance to allow gate-checking and gate-delivery of strollers was a contributing factor to this accident. If not for having "oversized luggage" -- and "oversize" in Europe can even be a collapsible stroller that could rather easily fit in an overhead bin even as it would likely take up the entire overhead bin -- this accident almost certainly wouldn't have happened how it did.

Very few people realize how potentially dangerous those "dead-end" "oversize" baggage "belts" can be. Most people don't even realize such baggage claim areas have moving parts that are manually and remotely activated since they most often or only see that baggage "belt" stationary.

Ok, now it makes sense. I don't recall ever seeing such a system, only the conventional systems where the baggage goes round and round.

If the kid could fall between the rollers that could be a very bad situation.

I agree.

Every time a parent kills their child through an act of unmitigated stupidity, there is so much unwarranted sympathy for the parent who killed their child -
"Oh, she suffered the loss of her child, isn't that enough punishment?"

Well, let's look at it objectively...

If anyone other than the child's parent had killed the child through an act of blatant stupidity, would people be calling for the killer to be prosecuted? Yup. Yer damned right they would. Particularly the child's parents.

So why should a parent get a free pass when they kill their child through an act of blatant stupidity? Just because it's their kid, just because the loss hurts them, doesn't make their actions less negligent. In fact, since the child was theirs, that makes the child their direct responsibility, which makes their actions even more stupid, more negligent, and makes them more culpable for the death of a child than a stranger would be in the same situation.

Grief aside, this woman killed her child. You can call it an accident all you want, but the truth is that placing an infant onto a dangerous conveyor belt in a public place, whether the belt was moving at the time or not, qualifies as criminally negligent behavior, at least under US law. I imagine it's probably the same in Spain and most other European countries, as well.

Just because it was not intentional doesn't mean the parent is not responsible for her actions. She killed her child. She didn't intend to, but she killed her child.

I say, prosecute.