Ferri leaves with baby with mother left on shore

[Glacier]

A departing B.C. Ferries vessel had to be turned around Sunday morning, after a woman left her five-month-old infant with a stranger on board so she could retrieve something onshore, and the ship sailed without her. The incident caused delays for all remaining sailings that day.

Ferries’ spokeswoman Deborah Marshall confirmed that a woman and her child boarded Queen of Cowichan for an 8:30 a.m. sailing out of Horseshoe Bay to Nanaimo, after leaving a couple of coolers in the onshore luggage rack.

The coolers weren’t permitted, so the woman was paged on board, Marshall said. “She left her baby with a lady she had met in the waiting room, went off the vessel to go collect her coolers, and in the meantime, the vessel had been cleared for sailing.

“Our crew didn’t realize she had a baby on board, so obviously she was quite upset about the situation once she realized the ship had left,” Marshall said. “So when we had the communication between the ship and shore, the captain decided to bring the vessel back to Horseshoe Bay and pick her up.”

Marshall said it took several minutes for the situation to come to Ferries staff members’ attention. The whole incident caused an hour’s delay.

B.C. Ferries will, on occasion, turn a vessel around. The most common reason is a medical emergency, when it’s closer to bring a ship back into port so a passenger can get medical help, rather than continue the voyage to the other side.

However, Marshall added, given that B.C. Ferries has an average of 500 sailings a day, it’s extremely rare to turn a ship around and return to port.

“This was quite an unusual [Sunday]. I can’t say I’ve ever heard of it.

“Leaving a five-month-old in somebody else’s hands is, how can I put this? It’s not advisable.”

Marshall said B.C. Ferries is looking into how it handled internal communications in the situation, including why staff members didn’t know the woman was leaving a baby on board and if there was enough time for her to return ashore to collect her belongings.

[grammafreddy]

Bad ferri

Bet you mean "ferry"?

[the truth]

what a dum sob mother left her 5 month old with a stranger ,

[ferri]

it was a cute baby and i wanted it!!! lol bunch of nuts.

[Graphite]

That mother was a dope.

[ticat900]

That mother was a dope.

was? did she pass away?

[givenrfarm]

Don't care about ferry being turned around. What about that baby? Who or rather WHAT kind of mother leaves her baby with anyone she doesn't know other than having met while waiting for a boat ride? I'm mortified to think the behaviours she normally would have while parenting the child. Isn't this a huge HUGE red flag for ministry to jump in and make sure "mom" has the nessasary parenting skills to keep baby safe from "stranger danger" and other things. Michael Dunahee people... Kids go missing. Especially when their parents GIVE their child to strangers!

[Glacier]

Michael Dunahee people... Kids go missing. Especially when their parents GIVE their child to strangers!

I think you're overreacting. She has a 99.99% chance that the person is not going to do anything sinister. I can't think of anyone who has given their child to a stranger and never got him back. Dunahee and others are taken by creeps without the parents knowing of his existence. Desperate times call for desperate measures, so I'd probably do the same as that lady (with plenty of witnesses of course).

[givenrfarm]

Nope. Couldn't do it. Couldn't hand my child to a stranger while I LEFT a BOAT. This wasn't an emergency according to the write-up. This was a woman who wanted her cooler? Shall we compare.. Hey lady, could you hold my baby while I go to the parking lot of this mall and retrieve something from my car? This woman could have taken baby with her and asked a crew member for assistance in retrieving her belongings. It's over-reacting when insidences like this are no longer reacted to.

[grammafreddy]

I'm trying to recreate the incident from the mother's perspective. She'd forgotten the bag(s) on shore and the ferry was going to be leaving soon so she knew she was going to have to hurry. I can see this being an OMG moment. We don't know if the person she left the child with was a kindly person who offered to hang onto the kid while she ran to get her stuff - maybe a respectable looking person who sympathized with her and said, "I'll take care of XXX while you run to get the bags." And so she did and then she missed the ferry. I can see that happening totally.

Trust the media to sensationalize anything they can.

Kudos to the ferry corp for turning around for her and the child.

[givenrfarm]

and how do you not notice a huge ferry LEAVING the dock? The ship's whistle would have had to be blown. Just how long did she leave her kid?

[Bpeep]

She always coulda bought another baby.
Dunno what all the hubbub is about.

[givenrfarm]

Is this going to be the same mom we read about a few years from now that will leave her kid in the car while she runs in to pay for fuel because the guy next to the car looked "nice". Remember the mom/dad that didn't notice they had forgot their kid under the tree at the mall? When we hire daycare/nannys for our children, we demand criminal record checks, references, first-aid knowledge. There is nothing in this world more important to me then the safety of my child. No luggage, money, car, or other material item is worth that .01% of risk to a child. We make mistakes as parents, that's normal. Leaving a child with a stranger long enough for a boat to leave the dock without noticing, well, that's more than a mistake. I cannot possibly be the only parent that thinks so.

[grammafreddy]

The story doesn't say how long, does it?

She may have had food and milk for the baby in the cooler or maybe medicines that had to be kept cold. They may have been very necessary. She did not know the ferry had been cleared for sailing AFTER she'd left the ship and the staff did not know she had the baby with her. The ferry would have blown its horn while she was already on shore since it was not cleared to leave until after she left it.

She had already met the person she left the baby with while they were all waiting to board and we all know how long that can be sometimes - hours. It wasn't as if she just picked this person randomly in the panic of the moment and thrust the child at them and ran for the coolers.

[Piecemaker]

I guess what she did is better than if she had left the baby with someone on shore and sailed off without it! (I believe I may have felt like doing that once or twice when I was a young parent!)

To be sure, what she did is ill-advised (obviously, since the ferry sailed without her). However, it is not unusual for "strangers" to help out parents with their young children in situations that require more hands or feet than a parent has. I've done so.
And while I would not leave my child in the circumstances that she did, that does not mean she is an unfit parent. Probably inexperienced and perhaps a little overwhelmed while travelling with an infant.