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It means that exhaustion is a real factor that families with newborns have to take seriously.
The point is not to frighten parents.
It is to recognize that exhaustion can affect judgment and awareness in ways that are difficult to appreciate until it happens.
For now, however, the family is facing something far more immediate than legal questions.
They are mourning.
The home that once held the sounds and routines of a newborn will now carry a painful memory of the night everything changed.
Emergency workers who responded may remember the call.
And the father will likely remember those final moments for the rest of his life.
Whether investigators ultimately classify the incident as a tragic accident, determine that negligence played a role, or uncover other circumstances, the human consequences are already permanent.
A family has lost a child.
And a father who wanted nothing more than a quiet moment with his son is now at the center of an investigation surrounding a tragedy that no family should ever have to experience.
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