Child dies every 10 days

It was 100 degrees outside when a 21-month-old Phoenix, Ariz., girl was left in her family's minivan around 2:30 p.m. on Sunday.

Two and half hours later, when the toddler's father got in the van to leave on an errand, he discovered his daughter's limp, sweat-soaked body still in her child safety seat. The family performed first aid on the child until rescue personnel arrived and took her to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead, according to reports.

So far this year, 19 children have died from vehicular heatstroke, according to Janette Fennell, founder and president of Kids And Cars, an organization determined to document and prevent such heartbreaking tragedies.

"The worse thing a person could do is to think it can't happen to you," Fennell said. "People assume it can't happen to them, but the parents it has happened to thought the same thing. It can happen to anyone. Assuming it can't happen to you is a very dangerous thing to do,"

More children have died in the first six months of 2010 from vehicular heatstroke than ever before, Kids And Cars reports.

"If we leave the headlights on or keys in the ignition, our cars provide a warning buzz. Somehow our society has decided that it's not OK to have a dead car battery, but it's okay to have a dead baby," Fennell said.

As summer continues and the weather heats up, the risk of children dying in vehicles escalates.

A child left in a vehicle for a surprisingly short time can succumb to hypothermia - as seen in the case of a 1-year-old girl who died earlier this month after being left in a hot car for about 45 minutes in Kingsville in Southeast Texas.

Kingsville police Chief Ricardo Torres said the child's mother had just returned home from picking up her children when she mistakenly left the toddler in the family car, reported the Associated Press.

The age of children who have died from vehicular hypothermia in the United States between 1998 and 2009 have ranged from 5 days to 14 years, with 33 percent of hypothermia deaths involving children under the age of 1, Kids And Cars reports.

"All parents, guardians, anyone caring for a child, should never leave a child, or even a pet for that matter, in a vehicle unattended, not even for a minute," said Corning Fire Chief Martin Spannaus.

He said children shouldn't be left in vehicles no matter the temperature outside, "whether cold or hot."

It's also important to be wary of children playing in cars.

"This offers another potential disaster," Spannaus said. "A child can be playing in a car, a door closes and they can't get themselves out. The trunk is another site for children to play and get locked in."

Corning police Chief Tony Cardenas adds, "A person who leaves a young child or animal unattended in a vehicle could be held accountable to laws pertaining to those very circumstances. There are a series of penal and vehicle code laws directed toward child neglect, abuse and endangerment that deal with the act of someone leaving a child unattended in a vehicle."

Cardenas, in part, is referring to California's Kaitlyn's Law, named for Kaitlyn Russell, a 6-month-old baby who died in 2000 after being left alone by her caregiver in a parked car for more than two hours in 100-degree heat in Orange County.

The law makes it illegal for a child to be left unattended in a motor vehicle.

Heatstroke, the cause Kaitlyn's death, occurs when a person's temperature exceeds 104 degrees and their thermoregulatory mechanism is overwhelmed. A core body temperature of 107 degrees is considered lethal as cells are damaged and internal organs shut down, according to medical studies.

When she arrived at the hospital, Kaitlyn's body temperature was 107 degrees.

"Even if a child survives, the heat can cause permanent organ damage," Spannaus explained.

Children are at greater risk to heatstroke than adults as their thermoregulatory systems are not as efficient and their body temperatures warm at a rate three to five times faster than adults, reports state.

Add into the mix the dynamics of a car sitting in the hot sun and you have a recipe for disaster.

According to the San Francisco Department of Geosciences, the atmosphere and the windows of a car are relatively "transparent" to the sun's shortwave radiation.

This transparency allows the sun's heat into a vehicle, heating up such things as the dashboard, steering wheel, childseat, and other items, to temperature ranges from 180 to 200 degrees.

Within minutes these objects radiate heat into the air trapped inside the vehicle, causing the temperature inside the vehicle to rise in excess of 123 degrees, even though the temperature outside the vehicle is only 80 degrees, the department states.

Through Fennell and her organization's research, they discovered a clear connection between the implementation of airbags and an increase in child vehicular heat stroke.

In most states, infants are required to ride in rear-facing infant seats, in the back seat of a vehicle. Rear-facing infant seats do not look any different from the front seat if they are occupied or empty, which can cause a parent to think the child is no longer in the car with them, Fennell explained.

Kids And Cars reports, In the three-year period from 1990-1992, before airbags were required, there were only 14 known child hypothermia deaths.

Now that most infants and young children travel in the back seat because of safety risks attached to passenger side airbags, the number of child hypothermia deaths has skyrocketed.

At least 180 children were killed by a deploying passenger side airbag from 1990-2008 - during those same years more than 550 children died in vehicles due to heatstroke, according to KidsAndCars.org.

"Today we are suffering from the totally unintended consequence of moving children to the back seat," Fennell stated.

Her organization emphasizes this in no way implies children should be placed in the front seat, as they are much safer in the back seat, where they should always be properly restrained.

The kind of people who forget a child in a vehicle plays across the board of ethnicity, lifestyle, rich, poor, educated, religious and atheist.

"The wealthy do, it turns out. And the poor, and the middle class. Parents of all ages and ethnicities do it. Mothers are just as likely to do it as fathers. It happens to the chronically absent-minded and to the fanatically organized, to the college-educated and to the marginally literate. In the last 10 years, it has happened to a dentist. A postal clerk. A social worker. A police officer. An accountant. A soldier. A paralegal. An electrician. A Protestant clergyman. A rabbinical student. A nurse. A construction worker. An assistant principal. It happened to a mental health counselor, a college professor and a pizza chef. It happened to a pediatrician. It happened to a rocket scientist," writes Gene Weingarten in his 2008 Washington Post article, "Fatal Distractions."

It happens to doting parents who love and adore their children and could never imagine harming them.

Many people wonder how could a loving parent possibly forget their child in a car.

While there are many causes, studies have found that two of the most common are stress and becoming distracted.

To solve this problem, Fennell suggests a number of countermeasures to the dangers of stress and distraction in the vehicle, such as always putting something in the backseat floorboard where you have to open the backseat door before leaving your vehicle, or placing a teddy bear in your child's safety seat that is placed in the front passenger's seat when the child is in the car.

"It is going to take a combination of education, increased awareness and technology to take way what is the worse thing that can happen to a family," Fennell said.

DEATH BY NUMBERS

· Child vehicular heatstroke deaths for 2010 as of Monday - 19
· Child vehicular heatstroke deaths for 2009 - 33
· Child vehicular heatstroke deaths from 1998-2010, at least - 464
· Average number of child vehicular heatstroke deaths per year since 1998 ·  37  (one every 10 days)
· The highest number of fatalities for a one-year time period took place in 2005 -  47

CHILD DEATH STATISTICS

Reasons for vehicular heatstroke deaths:

1998 - 2009 specific to child vehicular heatstroke deaths shows the following:
· 51 percent - child forgotten in vehicle
· 30 percent - child playing in unattended vehicle
· 18 percent - child knowingly left in vehicle by adult
· 1 percent - circumstances
unknown

SAFETY TIPS FOR SUMMER

• Never leave children alone in or around cars; not even for a minute.
• Put something you’ll need like your cell phone, handbag, employee ID or brief case, etc., on the floor board in the back seat.
• Get in the habit of always opening the back door of your vehicle every time you reach your destination to make sure no child has been left behind. This will soon become a habit. This is part of the “Look Before You Lock” campaign.
• Keep a large stuffed animal in the child’s car seat when it’s not occupied.  When the child is placed in the seat, put the stuffed animal in the front passenger seat. It’s a visual reminder that anytime the stuffed animal is up front you know the child is in the back seat in a child safety seat.
• Keep vehicles locked at all times; even in the garage or driveway and always set your parking brake.
• Keys and/or remote openers should never be left within reach of children.
• Make sure all child passengers have left the vehicle after it is parked.
• When a child is missing, check vehicles and car trunks immediately.
• If you see a child alone in a vehicle, get involved. If they are hot or seem sick, get them out as quickly as possible. Call 911 or your local emergency number immediately.

Source: Kids And Cars