At press time, Maine Department of Public Safety’s press release about a child not breathing in Edgecomb, and then pronounced dead at a Damariscotta hospital, was hours old in our email box and on our websites. As often happens early in an investigation, the release left a lot out, like if the child was a girl or boy and if the Route 1 home where responders went was or was not the child’s home.

People sometimes fill in the blanks when they don’t have details. That can involve assuming, based on little or nothing; or surmising, a little better but still less reliable than waiting until officials confirm the information. So just as the release did not say the child was an Edgecomb child, or that the child lived at the home responders were called to, we did not fill in those blanks.

The risk of getting something wrong matters in all stories, but it is never more sensitive, more important to avoid than in a matter such as this week’s. So while we all may hear things or “know” things through local talk, let us as a community resist filling in blanks and instead await confirmed information. 

Maine Department of Public Safety or other authorities may have released some or even much more information by the time online readers see this column Wednesday and print readers on Thursday. But what will not change is this is a time to grieve.