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Child heat deaths: Thorny issue, few fixes
On a hot Sunday in July, a father in Mississippi tried to coax his 3-year-old daughter into learning how to release the buckle on her car seat. The preschooler couldn't figure it out. So he tried to get her to learn how to open the back door on her own. That didn't work either. "She just couldn't do it, which is terrifying to me," said Lawrence Patihis, a memory researcher at the University of Southern Mississippi. Patihis had become concerned about his daughter after hearing news of the spike in heat-stroke deaths in children left behind or trapped in cars. Safety experts are pushing regulators and the auto industry to come up with technological solutions to help solve the problem of pediatric heatstroke in cars. But it has been hard to get momentum on the issue in large part because the public blames parents for being irresponsible rather than seeing the issue as one that could affect anyone.
Forgotten Children: Why do parents keep leaving their kids in hot cars?
TEXAS LEADS THE NATION IN HOT CAR DEATHS WITH MORE THAN 110 CASES SINCE 1990, INCLUDING FIVE THIS YEAR ALONE.
Local mom shares story of losing baby in hot car
For the first time, a family is sharing their story of losing their 5-month-old baby in a hot car. This family didn't want to share their names, and the dad is still too upset to talk, but they are sharing their pain, hoping to save another child. "This is one of the first ones I sent," said the mother, looking down at letters she wrote. It took a lot of courage for this mom to sit down and write other families who share her pain. "We're thinking of you at this difficult time," she said, reading a letter. She lost her 5-month-old daughter, Lily, in a hot car. "I won't forget this for the rest of my life, but I didn't say goodbye to her because we were in a hurry," she remembers.
4 Recent Hot Car Deaths Prompts Urgent Plea for New Safety Technology
On the heels of National Child Vehicular Heatstroke Prevention & Awareness Day on Sunday, July 31, KidsAndCars.org is urgently calling upon the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to require driver reminder technology in all vehicles to help to prevent the tragic deaths of babies and toddlers dying in hot cars. So far this year, at least 23 children have died of heatstroke in vehicles, nearly as many as the total for last year, KidsAndCars.org reports. Four died over the July 22-24 weekend in the states of Florida, Pennsylvania, Missouri and Texas. "Since 1990 more than 775 children have died in these preventable tragedies. Where is the outrage?" stated Janette Fennell, president and founder of KidsAndCars.org, the only national nonprofit child safety organization dedicated solely to preventing injuries and deaths of children in and around vehicles. "Automakers have already added numerous reminders to make sure we buckle up, don't leave keys in the ignition, don't leave our headlights on and many more. We think a driver reminder chime to save a child's life should be just as important as preventing a dead car battery."
A Mother’s Plea After Baby Dies In Hot Car
Texas leads the nation in heatstroke-related deaths of children in cars by a large margin with 106 fatalities from 1991 to 2015. Janette Fennell is founder and president of KidsAndCars.org, a national child safety nonprofit based in Philadelphia. She says those numbers began drastically rising in the 1990s when laws were passed requiring young children be placed in the back seat to avoid injuries from airbags. “Out of sight, out of mind,” says Fennell. “We further are keeping our kids safer by having them rear-facing. And if you’re the driver of a vehicle, you can’t tell if there’s a baby in that car seat or not — because they’re in their little cacoon, they fall asleep, you’re probably sleep-deprived and it’s a real recipe for disaster.”
