On the tragic deaths of a mother and three children – a dissenting view

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I read that Pebbles Hooper, described variously as a “socialite” and “gossip columnist” in today’s Sunday Star Times, has removed a Twitter comment in which she described the deaths from carbon monoxide poisoning of Ashburton mother Cindy George and her three children as an example of “natural selection”.

Tweets are of course easy to remove: ideas are a different matter. It remains a fact that Hooper thought and then gave public voice to the thought that George’s mistake in leaving the car engine running in her garage was an example of such stupidity that it rendered her unfit for survival in the modern world.  And, unfortunately, her children too.

The unspoken conclusion from this line of thinking would seem to be that when people make stupid mistakes they deserve what’s coming to them. And, unfortunately, it would seem, their children too. No point in wasting  your sympathy on such lost causes. C’est la vie! 

So what to do? The eugenicist would probably see the deaths of George and her children as not merely inevitable but desirable – a classic example, as Hooper herself pointed out in her text, of “natural selection”, the “survival of the fittest” to the general improvement of society.

My reading of these events was that George had done something rather foolish, left a car engine running in a closed garage with the aim of charging the battery. She’d then gone off to watch television with her children, got distracted, gone back to check progress or turn off the engine and been overcome by the carbon monoxide fumes. At that point it’s already too late.

A little research would have told Hooper that carbon monoxide is colourless, odourless, tasteless and non-irritating. It can kill extremely quickly, so quickly that even brief exposure to the gas can lead to loss of consciousness, making it impossible for the victim to escape the danger or survive. Too late for Cindy George. Too late for her children.

Neither stupidity nor “natural selection” had anything to do with what happened here. Cindy George simply made a mistake, a tragic mistake that cost her and her children their lives.

The only proper response to this tragedy is deep sadness and a determination that others may learn from this mother’s mistake.

To refer to these deaths as an example of “natural selection” illustrates such a profound lack of compassion and human decency that it beggars belief.

Media trainer and commentator Dr Brian Edwards posts at Brian Edwards Media.

Brian Edwards deleted a line from the original version of this column following a request from the Mental Health Foundation - Editor

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