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Hot Car Deaths: Why Do Parents Still Face Prison for a ‘Normal’ Memory Lapse?
In late June, 38-year-old Nicole Engler unintentionally left her only child to die of hyperthermia in a hot car. Hours later, tearing her hair out and begging police to let her commit suicide, she was in the county jail, facing second-degree manslaughter charges. Her attorney picked up the phone and called neuroscientist David Diamond in Florida to ask for his help—and for the 19th time in his career, Diamond agreed to tell a court why parents and caretakers lose awareness of children in the back seat of a car.
2019 Hyundai Santa Fe Rear Occupant Alert Aims to Protect Kids From Hot Cars
Hyundai rolled out a new technology in the redesigned 2019 Santa Fe SUV that could help prevent parents from leaving a child in the back seat of a hot car. Hyundai’s system, called Rear Occupant Alert, goes a step beyond competitors’ systems because in addition to reminding drivers that the rear door was opened prior to the trip, it continues to monitor the rear seat for motion after the vehicle is parked and all doors are locked. “Hyundai’s two-stage warning system—which uses door logic as well as an ultrasonic motion sensor located in the ceiling behind the rear seat—is a step above what other automakers are offering, based on our evaluation,” says Emily Thomas, Ph.D., Consumer Reports’ automotive safety engineer.
Check the Back Seat! Alerts Remind Drivers About Children
As the hot-car death rate remains stubbornly high, new sensors and other reminders are in the works; Nissan to make it's alert a standard feature, a step advocates have encouraged. This year 29 children have died from vehicular heatstroke, on pace to make 2018 one of the deadliest on record, according to KidsAndCars.org, a child-safety advocacy group. Heatstroke is the leading cause of non-crash vehicular deaths for children younger than 15, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.What happens in your brain when kids are left in cars
Parents say they would never, ever forget their child in a car on a hot day. But David Diamond, a professor of psychology and molecular pharmacology and physiology at the University of South Florida who studies memory, warns it could happen to anyone. “Everybody has forgotten to execute a plan. We're just almost always talking about an inanimate object," he said. "People always say, ‘That’s all fine, but we're talking about a child. ... You have to have priority for your child." That's not exactly how your brain thinks about it, even if you want it to.
'How Did I Leave My Child In The Car?' Experts Say It's Easier Than You Might Think
How could a parent forget their child in the car? That is a question people ask every summer as dozens of children die in hot cars, forgotten by their parents. Eric Stuyvesant used to be one of them.
