Safety Alert
That quick dash into the grocery store or post office in hot weather could lead to a world of danger. The danger comes in when you want to quickly run in and leave the little one in the car. All to often when the weather gets warmer the news starts reporting deaths that occurred because a child was left in a hot car. In these days and times with all the dangers in the world you would think that reminding parents not to leave kids in cars would not be needed. According to the National SAFE KIDS campaign, 25 children die each year after being left in a hot car. Temps inside of a closed vehicle can quickly rise to 120 to 140 degrees which can quickly lead to a heat stroke and death in a young child.
Note of warning: car doors should be kept locked so a young child can not get in by himself where the same danger can occur.
Annie,
ReplyDeleteThank you for helping warn parents of the dangers children face in and around motor vehicles. I work for KidsAndCars.org, an organization that has been pioneering a national prevention movement since 1996 by promoting the highest level of awareness among parents, caregivers, legislators and the public at-large about the dangers inherent to children when in or around motor vehicles. We began collecting data on incidents involving children unattended around vehicles over 10 years ago. Unfortunately, the average number of vehicular heat-related deaths is 37 per year! :( Between 1998 and 2010, 455 children died from heat stroke because they were unattended in vehicles that became too hot. More than 50% of the children who died from heat stroke were forgotten by a caring adult who became distracted when leaving the vehicle. Thank you again for putting the word out there. Please let us know if there is anything we can do to help you spread the word. In the meantime, I highly suggest reading the article "Fatal Distraction" (Washington Post) By Gene Weingarten. He won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing for this article that dives into the issue of children being forgotten in motor vehicles.