It was a quiet August 16th at the Walmart in Keene, New Hampshire. All of the shoppers were happily shopping. All walks of life harmoniously coalescing in an american crockpot of deals and cheap labor.
But all things good must come to pass, as this peaceful silence was broken when Lt. Jason Short received a horrifying call. Someone called 911 to report a baby trapped inside a hot car at the Walmart shopping plaza.
It was a sweltering hot day, so upon receiving the call, Lt. Short rushed to the scene.
Time and time again, we’ve seen cases of children or pets dying after being left in cars on warmer days. The cop knew that time was of the essence.
Upon arriving to the scene, Lt.
Short saw what he was hoping not to be true: inside the car was a baby strapped into a car seat with a bottle and blanket… motionless.
Short immediately pulled out his baton and smashed the window to rescue the baby inside.
However, after he broke the window, he knew something was terribly wrong.
Upon further inspection, the infant was completely lifeless. Short, with no avail, attempted to perform CPR on the child.
He called an ambulance immediately.
While waiting for the ambulance, the owner came rushing up to the car, rightfully concerned.
The owner angrily asked why the police had smashed her window and the policeman was dumbfounded that she hadn’t realized what she done.
Short motioned to the lifeless child, and to his dismay, the owner wasn’t phased, and actually got angrier. Carolynne Seiffert, the owner of the car explained that the child in question was actually an extremely lifelike doll (pictured above) that she had bought as a coping tool because she recently lost her 20-year old son from Hunters-disease.
Short apologized and immediately called off the ambulance.
Carolyne Seiffert, as it turns out is a collector of “reborn” dolls. A reborn doll is a manufactured skin doll that has been transformed by an artist to resemble a human infant with as much realism as possible.
The process of creating a reborn doll is referred to as reborning and the doll artists are referred to as reborners.
Reborn dolls can range from 40 dollars to 2000 dollars, depending on how much detail goes into the “rebirth”.
As the New York Times described in 2005, in the processes of “reborning” a doll the item is first dismantled, cleaned of paint and recolored, “often using a blue that helps the artist achieve a realistically veiny look. Glass eyes may be substituted for the original plastic ones.
Hair is removed and replaced, sometimes with hand-implanted mohair or even human hair. ” To simulate the weight of a real infant, the doll’s body cavity may be filled with pellets.
For most people seeking out reborn dolls, there is very little scientific evidence that it helps coping or grieving, but what works for one person may not work for the next.
Everybody grieves differently, so it’s proven to be a difficult area of study.