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In the nearly 18 months since Juan Rodriguez’s twin babies, Luna and Phoenix, perished in the back seat of his car — strapped in and forgotten on a sweltering summer day while he worked — the Rockland County dad’s grief has remained raw.

“It’s a struggle everyday,” Rodriguez, 40, told The Post last week in his first public statements since the July 2019 tragedy.

To cope, the father of five and his wife, Marissa, have become advocates for an issue they say many people still don’t understand: kids dying in hot cars. Juan is now appearing in a documentary on the topic.

This year, 24 children died of heatstroke after being left in cars in the United States, according to data collected by the Department of Transportation. In 2019, 52 children died and a record 53 died in 2018.

As a social worker, Rodriguez said he had no idea how common the problem is, calling it “a serious public health issue.”

“Now I am always conscious of it when I am treating others,” he said. “I can’t allow myself to get complacent.”

That’s why Rodriguez chose to appear in Susan Morgan Cooper’s upcoming documentary, “Fatal Distraction,” which takes a compassionate look at the grief faced by parents like Juan and Marissa Rodriguez, and how society treats them.

“We have all sorts of sensors and gadgets to prevent against lost keys, why not something to alert us to the fact that someone is still in the back seat?” said Morgan Cooper, whose documentary is set to premiere in the spring.

“These parents suffer so much shame, guilt and self-loathing,” the Los Angeles-based filmmaker said. “There is such a sense of judgment with the public. And it makes little sense. If your child dies from drowning in a pool, the whole society comes together and gives you support. In this case, there is only judgment, and they are treated like common criminals.”

Juan Rodriguez told The Post he is encouraged by the documentary, calling it “the very depiction of what’s happened to families” who are overworked and frazzled and forget their young children in a vehicle.
 
Yes, for the love of all that is holy, someone please invent yet another app/device/auto accessory to take the place of common sense. Why would it be so difficult to remember to put your damned phone or briefcase back there with your kid. Surely, you wouldn't forget that both of those things are in the car. :rolleyes:
 
It's because no one is able to use their intellect to decide what to do any more. We've become overly reliant on smart devices, but, since that is so, why aren't we setting an alarm on our phones when we get into the car to head off to work? Most people take the time to turn on blue tooth and choose their playlist, don't they?

You can label the alarms, so you could make one "Reminder to drop xxxx off at daycare", etc. just like I have to do to remember to take my vitamins in the morning. If people aren't capable of doing that on their own, then there's really no hope.
 
You can label the alarms, so you could make one "Reminder to drop xxxx off at daycare", etc. just like I have to do to remember to take my vitamins in the morning. If people aren't capable of doing that on their own, then there's really no hope.
I just don't understand how you can forget babies in the back, there is something horribly wrong with anyone that does that accidentally & think many subconscious or overtly do it on purpose
 
I really do believe it's because of cell phones. Many people, younger people of the age to have small children, fall into electronic media dependence and their thoughts are inextricably linked to it. Like any addiction, it commands one's attention over everything else.

You and I weren't raised with cell phones and other personal electronic devices, so we have a much different mindset and aren't so vulnerable to the addiction. I'm sure there are exceptions, but, by and large, I think that's true.
 
I love this pictures. I’m older than a lot of posters here. I keep hearing the advertising jingle that I’m pretty sure is the inspiration for these fraternal twins onesies. “Almond Joy’s got nuts; Mounds don’t. Sometimes you feel like a nut. Sometimes you don’t.”

I just wanted to share that. To me, it makes the pic even more adorable.

That father must live every day in hell on earth.
 

Family of tragic infant twins who perished in hot car welcome two new daughters: ‘The hope that we have needed to keep us going’​

The chubby cheeks and bright eyes of the Rodriguez’s lost twins gaze out from photos lining their mantle, keeping watch over a line of brightly colored Christmas stockings as the family prepares for a fourth holiday without them.

But amid the ghosts and pain that will forever haunt the Rockland County couple after 1-year-olds Luna and Phoenix were tragically forgotten, and died, inside their father’s car, new life has emerged.

Marissa Quattrone Rodriguez and her husband, Juan, 43, have welcomed not one but two new daughters since the July 2019 horror.

“When I got pregnant again it felt like a sign to just keep hope alive,” Quattrone Rodriguez, 41, told The Post.

“[The girls] have been the hope that we have needed to keep us going.”

Along with two new stockings for their daughters — one born in 2020 and another in August — reminders of Luna and Phoenix are everywhere, especially at Christmas.

Snapshots of their toothless grins, or the twins playing in the grass, adorn ornaments hung from their tree, while another shaped like angel wings hangs on a branch above a shadow box featuring two tiny white high chairs.
 
I know you think that an alarm would alert you to something you would need to remember or know about, but they are so present in everybody's life, at some point, you just stop hearing them.

When I worked at Dollar General, lots of years before shoplifting became so universal, they put in shelf and peg alarms, if a customer raised the little window on the shelf where the item was that they wanted an alarm went off, for the pegs, if they stood too near or too long in the area where one was installed, an alarm would go off.

Problem was after about a week of running over to see what was happening and finding nothing at all going on, you start ignoring them, because it's irritating and aggravating to hear that blasted alarm going off every few minutes. After ignoring them for so long, you just don't even hear them, because there are only so many things anyone can think about at the same time.
 
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