A mother whose one-year-old daughter died after her babysitter left her in the back of an overheating car has revealed why she has forgiven the woman responsible.
Deona Bien, now 59, lost her baby girl Aslyn Paige Ryan more than 20 years ago, but still grapples with grief and anger over her death.
Aslyn was in the back of babysitter Shawna Akin's car as she was running errands on February 5, 2004 when she forgot to unload her from the vehicle.
She began to overheat and despite being raced to the hospital, her organs shut down and she died two day's later.
Tragically Aslyn's story is not unique, as the latest figures indicate that at least 27 children have died in a similar manner so far this year.
It is partly this realization which has led Bien to come to forgive Akin, even though she did not bother to show up at a court hearing following the tragedy.
'I forgive her, I understand. I think the only thing that I would have wanted was more of the truth of what happened that day,' Bien told Daily Mail.
At the time of Aslyn's death, the family was living in Honolulu, Hawaii, where Bien's then-husband Timothy Ryan was stationed at an Air Force base.
Deona Bien is pictured with her daughter, Aslyn Paige Ryan. Aslyn died in February 2004 after her babysitter left her in the car for nearly an hour while running errands on an 85 degree day
Akin ended up leaving Aslyn inside her vehicle for almost an hour in 85 degree heat, Bien told Daily Mail.
By the time Akin remembered and got her out, Aslyn's body temperature had soared to around 106 degrees.
She was rushed to the hospital and admitted into the ICU with a case of severe oxygen deprivation to the brain.
'Two days after she was admitted into ICU, her body began to shut down, and she passed away. She just couldn't overcome it,' Bien told Daily Mail.
Aslyn had multiple strokes and needed continuous blood transfusions from the bleeding in her intestines, kidneys and nose.
'A parent's most heart-breaking moment in life has to be having the neurologist tell you your baby was no longer the baby you once knew and the medical staff was prolonging her death,' Bien said in testimony she delivered to the Hawaii state legislature in 2008.
Bien and Ryan eventually took Akin to court and secured a $2 million judgment in December 2007.
She told Daily Mail that her goal in filing the lawsuit wasn't to get compensated but justice for her daughter.
Neither Bien or Ryan, whom she split up with a few years after the lawsuit, have ever seen a penny of that money, nor did they expect to. Akin never showed up to court or hired an attorney, so the penalty was given to them by default.
But despite that, Bien told Daily Mail she forgives Akin and understands that what happened to Aslyn was an accident.
Bien noted that on the day she died, Akin was driving a different car than usual, with the break in routine potentially contributing to her memory lapse.
Aslyn is pictured during her first birthday party just days before she died from severe anoxia
Bien explained that Akin, who was in her mid thirties at the time, never offered a full account of what led up to her daughter's death.
She even held her tongue while was with the family at the hospital when doctors told them Aslyn was brain dead, Bien said.
Bien already believed her daughter died from being left in the hot car, but filed an FOIA request to get answers.
Roughly a year later, Bien said an individual at the Pentagon confirmed that the investigation into her daughter's death concluded that she died just the way doctors had suspected.
But that revelation failed to give her much comfort and she is tortured by the knowledge that Akin was the last person Aslyn saw.
'She holds the last moments of my child's life. When she was playing, when she was happy. She knows those memories, I don't,' she said.
'As a parent, you also wonder, was my child crying for me and I wasn't there to save her?'
Bien went through seven years of IVF to conceive Aslyn and the family had celebrated her first birthday just days before the tragedy.
Bien (pictured today) insists that human memory is 'not perfect,' something that research has concluded to be accurate
She has since come to appreciate a scientific understanding of why and how people could leave children in swelteringly hot cars.
'I can say I'm like most parents. I went through my angry phase, but the more I understood what happened that day, I think that it was very different for me,' Bien said.
Today, an average of 40 children a year die from being left in hot cars, according to nonprofit Kids and Car Safety.
A study published in March 2019 by neuroscientist David Diamond explained that parents sometimes unknowingly leave their kids behind in dangerous situations because of a failure in 'prospective memory'.
Prospective memory uses the information already stored in the brain — such as phone numbers or dates — to make plans for the future, including taking your child out of the car when you get to the store.
Diamond said that this kind of memory is 'uniquely fragile' and can fail if a person is stressed, distracted or isn't on their normal routine.
Additionally, he found that the brain can create false memories that can have parents convinced for 'many hours or even overnight' that they did not leave their child in the car.
Bien took Aslyn's babysitter to court, not to get a financial judgment from her, but to change the law in an effort to protect other children
Bien still mourns Aslyn to this day and revealed that she had to undergo seven years of fertility treatments to give birth to her
Of the 541 cases of children who died in hot cars from 1990 to 2016, just over 78 percent of them were due to parents who accidentally forgot them, according to a study in the Pediatric Emergency Care Journal.
'Our brains are not perfect. If you can leave your cell phone somewhere and you can't remember where it's at, then that's as easy as it is to forget,' Bien said.
'This also happens to parents with young children. They may have had a sleepless night, their child was sick, and so when they go into autopilot to drive into work, they forget. They lose a sense of where they're at. So, exhaustion plays a factor.'
Three years after Aslyn's death, Bien proudly stood next to then-governor of Hawaii, Linda Lingle, as she signed a bill into law named after her daughter.
The law now mandates that people are educated about how to avoid this exact tragedy during state drivers exams. Locals and tourists renting cars in the state need to receive the same education as well.
But Bien says there are steps parents can take to prevent the worst case scenario from ever occurring.
She suggests placing an item you will need at your destination on the back seat and making a habit of opening the back door even if your child isn't with you.
Bien and organizations like Kids and Car Safety are also putting pressure on lawmakers and car companies to adopt technologies that detect children left behind in vehicles. The 2025 Toyota Sienna (pictured) has a system that does just that
'It takes three seconds to open that back door and see if you've left anything behind, and that three seconds can save you a lifetime of heartache,' she said.
Bien and organizations like Kids and Car Safety are also putting pressure on lawmakers and car companies to adopt technologies that detect children left behind in vehicles.
Bien praised the Advanced Rear Seat Reminder system that was introduced last year as a standard feature in all 2025 Toyota Sienna minivans.
The sensor is able to detect movement in the second or third row of seats and deploy a series of notifications on the vehicle and via the Toyota app.
Bien said it dangerous to assume that it could never happen to you.
'This has happened to NASA scientists. It's happened to doctors. It's happened to attorneys. A lot of people are affected by things like this, and I don't think we realize how these are educated people who love their children.
'I think it's very hard for some people to understand, but I think they need to understand how easily it can happen.'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15036007/daughter-died-hot-car-deona-bien-hawaii.html?ico=authors_pagination_mobile
