Debbie

Reports detail Wisconsin van fire that killed 2 children
Associated Press

Article Last Updated: 12/28/2007 06:48:28 AM CST


GREEN BAY, Wis. - A woman whose minivan with six children inside caught fire while she was in a store braved flames to toss three children to safety but immediately afterward began blaming herself for the accident, according to newly released investigative reports.

The fire Nov. 28 in Luxemburg killed two youngsters and injured the other four, who have since been released from the hospital. The woman, Sue Laluzerne, was treated for injuries she suffered in her rescue efforts.

On Thursday, the Green Bay Press-Gazette obtained 74 pages of documents under the state Open Records Law. The reports from the Kewaunee County Sheriff's Department detail the fire, rescue efforts and follow-up investigations.

Among information in the reports:

- The fire started while Laluzerne, 36, of Luxemburg, was inside Lemens Hardware for about five minutes spending $27.37 for Christmas lights, chewing gum and suction cup hangers. It was the fourth time that day she left the children alone in the vehicle.

- In the van where the six children were waiting was a box of wooden stick matches, stashed in the cargo netting between the driver's and passenger's seats.

- Laluzerne's 5-year-old daughter, who got out of the van and ran in the store to alert her mother of the fire, told a hospital staffer later that she knew where the matches were kept, and she had gone to the front passenger seat to talk to her 3-year-old brother when the "matches started on fire by themselves."

__________________
Name your poison, name your passion - Lady Antebellum

glyn

__________________
Semper in excretum. Solum profunda variat.

AreYouCereal

wow... so tragic for these things to happen. Last summer a guy in my area went to work with his child in the back car seat. He completely forgot to take his child to the baby sitters before work and ended up leaving her in the back seat in the parking lot while he was working his 8 hour shift. I guess he forgot about the baby since she was in the back in her car seat. He came back to his car to find his child dead, i believe it was about 100 F degrees that day. so sad.

__________________
Bonkers!

Debbie

Glyn - Accident - CRAP. She left her kids in the vehicle. That was intended, she made a choice. Kids left alone are are going to find things, she knew there were matches there. She was too fricking lazy to remove her kids and then shop.

Debbie

People like this deserve to be hung up, disembowled and then shot. How does one "forget" there is another living-breathing human in a vehicle?

glyn

dalem

Hm, I guess Debbie's gonna be in a great mood when I get to work tonight, huh?

2 cookies or 3?

-dale

Debbie

Just lay down so I can kick you in the head and that will take care of it

Gun Grape

Wow, and I thought you were going to come back with one of those"The poor people, How tragic for them" type responses.

I like the way you think, Debbie

Attached Images

BravoZulu250.jpg (4.9 KB, 25 views)

Southie

I've gotta agree with you on this one Deb. Let's see...6 kids...need to pick up a few things...much easier to leave them all in the car for 5 - 10 minutes. Hopefully they won't find the matches that might accidently start on fire by themselves.

Something tells me she should have stopped after having one kid. No...take that back...NO KIDS!

__________________
"If you love someone, set them free. If they come back they're yours; if they don't they never were."
Richard Bach

Debbie

Parents that are stupid tick me off in the worst way imaginable. My anger does not have any boundaries in these types of situations. Tragic for them? Of course, that they are allowed to continue to roam the earth and procreate once more. THAT is the real tragedy.

I don't do the wringing of hands very well. There are actions and there are consequences. Stupid action results in stupid consequence - period.

Capt Bluesman

...Deep breath.... I have done this. When my youngest was but a new babe, my beloved Bluesman and I went to meet my parents at the hotel they were staying at, they had come to visit us. The two oldest were kept by the neighbor, but our youngest came with us. When we got to the hotel, we simply forgot she was in the car. We sat and chatted with my parents in their room for about 15 minutes, then went back to the car to lead them back to our house. I got a sick feeling in my stomach when I realized that we had left the baby in the car. No harm done, she slept the whole time and suffered no trauma.

I think anyone who knows us would call us good parents, and I think we have been good parents lo these past 20 years. None the less, we, on one occasion, forgot our baby in the car.