To All Parents

I am asking all parents and those who love children to listen to my story. Yesterday, I drove home, parked the Expedition, and was about to get out, when my phone rang. It was Julie. Kirsten, my 2 year old, was in her car seat. She started to fuss because she hates being in the car seat if we are not moving, so I let her get out and play in the back seat while I talked. At one point she rolled down the window. (Our car has a feature that when you turn the car off, you can still roll down the window, within a few moments. We usually keep the window locks on so the kids don't roll down the window while we are driving.) I wasn't too concerned because I wasn't going to be talking long. After a moment to two, I realized that it was very quiet, so I looked back to my left and saw that chocolate was all over the window. (The candy was from my Visiting Teaching Partner.) So I got out of the car to look at the mess and realized that Kirsten had looked out the window, and pushed the power button to roll it up, causing her to be strangled. I started screaming. I opened her door, but this caused her to hang from the window, so I closed the door, and turned the car to the on position, rolled down the window, and got her free.
She was blue and unconscious. Shortly after getting her out she started to respond, by moaning. I picked up my phone, which I had dropped, and you can only imagine what Julie is going through not knowing what is going on, only that I am screaming. She had hung up with me and called Jeff at work. Anyways, I dialed 9-1-1. If you ever have to call 9-1-1, try to use your land line because it took forever and being on hold before they got me to the local emergency headquarters. They arrived, by this time Kirsten was coherent, but sleepy. They checked her out and said to be safe they should take her in to be assessed. She is fine now, I wish I could say the same for myself. But to make myself feel better, I want to tell others so this can be avoided by others.