KOHEN PRYOR SMITH

Saturday, February 20, 2010

I'm ready to talk about it...

Last Wednesday was one of the worst days of my life. It started out with the move into our new house. It was such a stressful day. Jason was at work and I was in charge of the moving company (4 men) loading the moving truck at the old house, the Dish Network guy at the new house, worrying about our cats getting out at the old house because all the doors had been taken off their hinges, and toting a 15 month old back and forth between the two houses. When the moving truck finally arrived at the new house to unload, I asked one of the guys if it was ok if I went to Wal-Mart for a quick trip to return something. He said that would be fine. I was so glad to get away for a few minutes. So Kohen and I headed to Wal-Mart at about 4:00pm. We got to WM, I tossed my keys and my cell in my purse, placed it on the passenger seat, and got out of the vehicle. As I walked around to get Kohen out of his car seat I hear "honk honk".............. I thought to myself, "I KNOW my car did NOT just lock". I tried to open Kohen's door....locked. I tried to open the passenger door....locked. Drivers side door and the back....locked. My baby....inside the locked car. I immediately thought of Kelly from "Kelly's Korner" (a blog I follow) because not long ago she blogged about locking her little girl, Harper, in her car while at Target. Well, Kelly's story was pretty cute and Harper was locked in the car just briefly. So, I didn't panic at first. I realized my phone was also locked in the car. I flagged down a WM worker and he just blew me off pretty much and told me to go use the phone inside Wal-Mart. I told him I was not going to leave my baby in the car while I went inside, he just shrugged. I flagged down a girl getting out of her car and asked to use her cell phone. Luckily Kohen was asleep at the moment. She let me borrow her phone. I tried to call Jason but he didn't answer because he was with a patient. I had to call his office and have them pull him away from his patient. He told me he would put me on 3-way with OnStar. The OnStar lady told me that they would unlock the Escalade within 10 minutes. She told me NOT to touch the door before 10 minutes. At this point I started to panic a little. Seriously, TEN MINUTES! I didn't know how I was going to wait that long. Oh, by the way, it was FREEZING outside. I was shivering. I looked at my watch about 100 times during that 10 minutes. I actually waiting 15 minutes just to make sure I didn't mess up the unlock process. 15 minutes later I tried the door.... still locked. I tried all the doors. They were all locked. I had to flag down another lady to use her cell phone. By this time Kohen was screaming bloody murder. I know he was wondering why in the world his momma was standing right outside the door but wouldn't get him out! I used the second lady's cell and called Jason again. He called OnStar again. OnStar said they had tried multiple times to unlock the car but it failed each time. Jason told me he was on his way so I told the lady she didn't have to stay with me. By this time I was standing outside Kohen's window balling with him. I got lots of stares. I kept telling my baby, through tears, that I was so sorry for locking him in the car. He was pitiful. Crying, screaming, red faced, runny nose, wet face. I was helpless. (On a side note.... the extra set of keys were also in my purse and I did flag down a policeman but there was an emergency inside walmart and all the cops were tied up interviewing people so they didn't have time for me. I wasn't even able to tell them what was wrong b/c they were in such a hurry to get inside...) An hour had passed at this point. Jason arrived and told me that OnStar was sending someone from Parker Cadillac in Little Rock to come unlock the car. He said it would be about 45 more minutes!!!!!! I started crying even harder. A poor old lady saw me and asked if there was anything she could do. I just shook my head. Jason made me go sit in his Xterra to warm up while he stood outside Kohen's window. After about 30 more minutes (I was back at Kohen's window by this time) Jason had the idea to call the Superior dealership in Conway to see if they had any ideas on how to unlock the door. They told him they could cut us a key to get inside the car!!!! I RACED to the dealership, they met me with the key and I was on my way back to Wal-Mart. By the time I got back, the Parker Cadillac guy was there too. I unlocked the door, ran around the car and grabbed my crying baby!!!!!! I hugged him and hugged him and kissed him and kissed him and told him how sorry I was for doing that to him :( By this time it was after 6pm and dark outside. Over two hours. Over TWO hours my poor baby was locked in the car. Thank God it wasn't summer time or I would have seriously bought a sledge hammer at Wal-Mart and broken any and all windows of our new car to get my baby out. Kohen was fine after about 5 minutes. Just smiling and talking away.
I know he doesn't remember what happened but I know I will NEVER forget. I called my mom after it was all over and was not able to talk about it because I was still so upset about the whole thing. I have learned a very important lesson. Never again will I leave the drivers seat without checking to make sure I have my keys.

4 comments:

Julee said...

Oh my gosh Stephanie!!!! I'm reading this in shock! Bless your heart and Kohen's too!! I would be so mad at Onstar!! Matt said you could sue them over that! Omg! That was a bad day! I'm so sorry you had to go through that! I am looking forward to seeing pics of the new house!

Carozza Family said...

OK Steph,
You are not alone. This has happened to us as well. go to http://marcandashley.blogspot.com/2009/04/i-dont-look-for-trouble-it-just-finds.html
Very scary. Thank goodness the weather was cool that day or I would have had knock a window out in my car as well. Glad every thing turned out okay.

Mitzi said...

Oh Stephanie!! Bless your heart! And you're right, he has no memory of it and is FINE; but I know it still breaks your heart! Being a Mom, it is so wonderful and tough! :)

Unknown said...

Hi Stephanie. My name is Rebecca and I work at OnStar in the public relations group. I just came across your post and I am so sorry to read about your very scary ordeal. If it's okay with you, I would love to investigate this further with you to understand what happened and why we weren't able to unlock your doors. I will send you a private message with my contact information so we can discuss this and I can get the right people involved to figure out what happened. Again, I do apologize and hope that we can speak soon.