Photo: KEPR
Children are still dying of heatstroke in cars, despite repeated warnings from authorities and advocacy groups. Just this past week, one died and another was rescued in time, after being locked in a vehicle in the scorching weather.
Where startling figures and warnings fail, perhaps a visual will do the job: parents and caregivers need to think of cars as ovens, which get very hot, very quickly when it’s warm outside.
The car doesn’t even have to be in direct sunlight for it to act this way, Lorrie Walker, training and technical advisor for Safe Kids Worldwide, tells Health. Even in the shadowy area or under a clouded sky, a car can heat as much as 20 degrees in 10 minutes.
“These are the ones we really, really struggle with, because we tell people over and over not to leave your child alone in a car, not even for one minute,” Walker says.
“Sunlight playing against the windows of a car make it like a convection oven,” Walker adds. “Cracking a window has no effect on this. It's totally meaningless. It does not do anything.”
The solution to this problem is to never leave your kid alone in the car, no matter how long you plan on being gone. The 2 most recent cases are a good example of that: the 1-year-old child that died was left in the car for under an hour, while the older boy rescued in time was locked in the car for much longer.
The father of the dead boy has been charged with involuntary manslaughter and unlawful neglect of a child, and is facing many years behind bars. In the latter, more fortunate case, the nanny who locked the child in the car to run errands and have lunch, is looking at a sentence for felony child endangerment.
Parents who unintentionally leave their kids locked in the car are not bad parents because of it, Walker says. They do, however, need to use visual cues to make sure this doesn’t happen, like placing a toy on the backseat and moving it in the front when the kid is in the car.
The car doesn’t even have to be in direct sunlight for it to act this way, Lorrie Walker, training and technical advisor for Safe Kids Worldwide, tells Health. Even in the shadowy area or under a clouded sky, a car can heat as much as 20 degrees in 10 minutes.
“These are the ones we really, really struggle with, because we tell people over and over not to leave your child alone in a car, not even for one minute,” Walker says.
“Sunlight playing against the windows of a car make it like a convection oven,” Walker adds. “Cracking a window has no effect on this. It's totally meaningless. It does not do anything.”
The solution to this problem is to never leave your kid alone in the car, no matter how long you plan on being gone. The 2 most recent cases are a good example of that: the 1-year-old child that died was left in the car for under an hour, while the older boy rescued in time was locked in the car for much longer.
The father of the dead boy has been charged with involuntary manslaughter and unlawful neglect of a child, and is facing many years behind bars. In the latter, more fortunate case, the nanny who locked the child in the car to run errands and have lunch, is looking at a sentence for felony child endangerment.
Parents who unintentionally leave their kids locked in the car are not bad parents because of it, Walker says. They do, however, need to use visual cues to make sure this doesn’t happen, like placing a toy on the backseat and moving it in the front when the kid is in the car.
Google News