Photo: Screenshots from World Wide News Youtube Channel
One of the great auto dangers drivers around the world face nowadays is as sadistic as unlikely it sounds. Recently, a group of shoppers at a Texas strip mall decided to take action when they saw a little boy and a girl trapped inside a hot Jeep Wrangler and smashed the window with a hammer. It might seem awkward, but studies show at least seventeen children died from heatstroke only this year.
The video showing folks smashing the backseat window of the off-roader to save the kids already went viral. It happened Monday in Katy, Texas as temperatures hovered above 98 degrees Fahrenheit (36 degrees Celsius). It seems their mother left the two inside the car so she could get a haircut. The problem is her decision could’ve turned into a disaster if it weren’t for the buyers' intervention.
According to Elite Daily, Gabriel Del Valle, the witness who recorded the whole incident, said that “even then [the adults] could barely open the doors because there was a child lock on. Kids were in there crying.”
It might seem a bit theatrical, but these situations can actually turn into real tragedies. As a matter a fact, according to the Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, so far in 2014 there have been at least seventeen heatstroke deaths of children in vehicles. Twelve of these cases were confirmed as heatstroke and five are still pending official findings by the medical examiner.
Last year, the total number of U.S. heatstroke deaths of children left in cars was 44, and the year before, 34. Since 1998, there have been at least 623 documented cases of heatstroke deaths of children in vehicles. Moreover, this data and study shows that these incidents can occur on days with relatively mild (i.e., ~ 70 degrees Fahrenheit / 21 degrees Celsius) temperatures and that vehicles can reach life-threatening temperatures very rapidly.
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