Kid Dies In Hot Car, It’s a tragic sign of spring: Two young children have died this month in Texas and Missouri after their parents accidentally left them all day in hot vehicles.
Although such deaths occur in nearly every month of the year, records show that warmer weather typically heralds a seasonal spike in fatalities from hyperthermia, or heat stroke, among children left in cars and trucks.
Worse, experts add, such calamities don’t have to happen.
“It’s a totally preventable occurrence,” said Kate Carr, president and chief executive of Safe Kids Worldwide, which recently launched a new campaign to raise awareness about the problem. “Our hearts go out to the parents and families of these children.”
In the most recent cases, a 7-month-old boy from the Sugar Land area of Houston died May 3 after the child’s father, Leland Jacobson, 41, left the baby for hours in the backseat of a pickup truck in 89-degree weather. Jacobson wasn't normally the parent who took his children to day care and became distracted after dropping off the older kids, police said.
On the same day, a 13-month-old boy from Lee’s Summit, Mo., died after his mother, a teacher, mistakenly believed she’d already left the child at day care that morning. Temperatures reached 83 degrees that afternoon.
“The investigation has revealed no signs of foul play and at this time it appears that the death was a tragic accident,” said Sgt. Chris Depue, spokesman for the Lee’s Summit Police Department.
That’s true of most cases in which children die after being left in hot vehicles. At least 529 such deaths have been recorded since 1998, including the two logged in the past week, according to figures from the Department of Geosciences at San Francisco State University, which tracks reports.
On average, 38 children die each year in hot cars, reports show. The numbers typically begin to climb in May, with an average of three deaths per month. They spike in July and August, when nine deaths, on average, are recorded, the figures show.
Read More:http://vitals.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/11/11640581-two-children-die-in-hot-cars-as-risky-season-begins?lite
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