Panic...


I have a 18 month old and got himself locked inside while playing at the driver's seat in weekend . My wife who was with him in the rear seat agreed to place him in the drivers seat to allow him to play with the control while I stepped out for a bit for a quick shopping. I called her up from the store saying that It will be couple of mins wait..so she placed him in the drivers seat and was trying to come to the front seat and this is when it happened. Between the transfer of my wife from rear seat to the front seat...the little one grabbed the keys and locked the doors... She called me up from another person cell phone in the parking lot and I came out running.

The little one had no idea what he has done and was still playing with the controls. I came up running and noticed it and called the Onstar... the Onstar rep was online less than a min and was trying to unlock the doors and couldn't as the car was in the parking garage. He tried for about 15 mins ...without sucess.

By this time...the little was done with his playing and was watching us staring at him with him with a worried faces . Then the Onstar guy and told us that they would arrange some road side assistance with TLC ..which will take 1-3 hrs.....
They were asking all weird questions of what color is the car how many miles did your car run blah blah.... that was not the time for those crappy questions....hello we are in an emergency situation here.....

I was pissed off...The onstar guys did not even have an answer of why they were not able to unlock the car...if they would have told me they cannot unlock the car if the car is in the garage where radio signals cannot be reached...we would have called 911 and looked for an alternative..

While I was on phone with Onstar , people started to gather around and give us moral help..and some went and brought their kids to make sure that the little one in the car is not scared...It was the sleep time for the little one and he was crying hard and closing his eyes and opening with uncontrollable sleep . We were worried that he might fall asleep and hit his head to steering wheel and fall down near the pedals... so scary.............

We called up 911 meanwhile and a cop showed in less than 2 mins and saw the situation and called the Firebrigade and assured us the baby will be okay. The little one crying hard as he was sweating and thinking that we were not coming to him...

The fire brigade came in less than 5 mins and jumped on to the job by force open a little bit of Drivers side door and inserted some sort of Air inflater which further forced the open for the tool to go inside the car to open the door.

They were very quick and understood the situation and were trying to entertain the little one while the others were trying to open the door.

After the fire brigade came it was less than 2 mins they opened the door and we could have our son in hands,.. all the people gathered around cheered the fire brigade for their fast response .....after the door was opened and we all are very very happy.. I was holding a small hammer to break the window glass if the fire brigade were having hard time to open the door...but that was not necessary told the fire brigade people.

My wife could not stop crying which she started before the cop showed up...The little one was anxious to hug her mom when he was taken out and slept immediately as he was exhausted...

Happy ending...............

People who gathered around the car to see what is happening hugged us after the little one was in our hands safe..............................

 

glad the boy is safe

 

Glad the boy is safe and sound. However, if have an '06 RL why didn't you and/or your wife just open the door?

 

Does the RL have a key lock ?? My TSX has a key lock in the driver's door - I wouldn't buy a vehicle without one ...

 

Thank goodness your young child is ok!!! I am sure you and your wife are relieved beyond words......

As the owner of a 2006 RL, I am puzzled by a few things.....with the RL, you should have been able to unlock the doors even with the key inside of the vehicle. As long as the key is near the vehicle, you are able to unlock the doors just by placing you hand behind the oustide door handle.

It my understanding that ALL On-Star service was suspended to Acura owners as of January this year (I received a letter).....I am very puzzled as to how your Acura could still recieve this service from On-Star. Were you still paying for an OnStar subscription? OnStar only let me pay month by month last year since they knew the service would be suspened this January.

I owned a 2003 Acura CL-S for 4 years and 183k miles and used On-Star for 3 emergency situations and the system/On-Star worked flawlessly....In fact I really miss not being able to have the service in my 2006 pre-owned RL.

 

I no longer have my RL, but as I recall, if the car is locked from the inside, it also has to be UNlocked from the inside.

Think about it - if a bad guy is trying to get to you, you get inside and lock the door ... if he could just touch the handle and unlock it, it wouldn't be too secure, would it? So they make it where people outside the car can't unlock it by touch if you've locked it from inside.

.
.

 

interesting.

I am going to ask my dealer...this is a very good question and safety issue.

Thanks for posting this.

 

The little one had the key inside in his and locked with the key. If you lock the car with keyfob from inside the car ... Even if you hold the door handle the car would not unlock.

 

It does have a key but the little one has it when he locked himself in....

 

Wow glad to hear your kid is okay. I am suprized the RL was that easy to break into did the alarm not even go off?

 

If you lock the doors with the keyfob...even if the car keys are inside the car...you cannot unlock by holding the car door handles...

I am a subscriber for Onstar.. I pay yearly to avoid such mishaps....

 

That's true that what exactly happened the other..we could not unlock it from outside by holding the door...

 

The alarm did go off and we did not care at that point..All we wanted was the little to be safe.. I ready to break the window glass at one point...but the fire brigade assured me...they unlock the car in less than 2 mins and they kept their word.... I owe them a lot.....

 

Was the RL's door damaged by any chance?

 

ONSTAR discontinued analog service in January 2008. That did have impact on 2004 and earlier RLs which had analog only receivers. The 2005 & 2006 RLs have analog & digital receivers which are still ONSTAR compatible. Your 2006 RL can have ONTAR services.

Acura dropped ONSTAR from 2007 and later RLs. It is anticipated that Acura will introduce their own telematics service at some point in the future.

Press your Blue ONSTAR button, even with no subscription, you should get an ONSTAR operator. That operator will likley advise you that you have no subsciption service. Otherwise non subscription RL owners (2005 & 2006 models) houdl have 911 capability through ONSTAR.


sri_gondi....I am glad the tyke is OK. Some situations are not forseeable for any safety mechanisms. It sounds to me, that the ONSTAR operator was not aware there was a child locked in the car. The questions about the car were likely a process to validate you were the owner of the vehicle and not someone fraudulently attempting to access the vehicle. He was not living you panic...not an excuse, but hopefully an explanation.

ONSTAR is not foolproof, just an additional layer of security. But for someone who personally was 'rescued' by ONSTAR, I think they are worthy.

 

Glad your little one is OK. As the poppa of a two-year-old, reading your story was upsetting.

Sounds like poorly trained OnStar personnel. If you told them you were in a parking garage, they should have been able to tell you that OnStar's signal wouldn't work...though a couple of attempts are warranted. Should have been handed over to the cops at that point by them.

Shakes my confidence in OnStar...

 

I have had my RL for three years and have never needed to push the Onstar button (thankfully), nor have I paid any subscription fees. If I were paying for the service on the other hand and the very time I called needing their assistance and they couldn't provide it I would be cancelling my service pronto and asking for refund. Is there a disclaimer that their service doesn't work in a garage?? That seems rediculous. Either way, really glad to hear that everything turned out OK.

 

Why blame ONSTAR for its "poor" performance. Not taking the key with you was the first mistake. Giving the key to an infant was the second mistake. Hopefully you learned from this experience. As your kid grows up, you'll be amazed by the trouble he can cause you so you have to keep one or two steps ahead. Next time ask yourself what could go wrong and it probably will.

 

Yeah. It is good to hear the little guy is ok but the only reason this happened was because your wife did something that boggles the mind. Why wouldn't she have just taken him outside with her and put him in the car when she moved to the front seat? I'd think any parent would not want to have ANY chance their young child is left in the car (even if it is for 3.2 seconds) by him/herself like that especially if the keys are not with them and the child could grab them.

Weird...not trying to sound like a dick but I hope your wife is pissed at herself and not just fuming at some secondary emergency service not helping and trying to pass some blame. She's the only one at fault here.

I do like the quick response and action of the fire dudes and again, am glad your boy is ok. Hopefully no other parental oversights like this will happen again with him.

 

Nope not really.. few scratches...no big deal...

 

Why are you criticizing his wife? He probably should have taken a key with him I'll admit but don't attack the mom's parenting skills. How was she ever supposed to think that she could get locked out and would not be able to get her child out? These things happen when you least expect it and I would say that it's a safe bet that she will never let this happen again. This whole thing is just bad luck, not bad parenting...

 

Time to mark this thread closed!

 

I think the OP has already learned his lesson. All parents screw up at least once...