Summer is here and that means hot temps especially in vehicles. Child Safety experts are reminding parents about making sure that kids are safe and that leaving kids in a hot car even for a few minutes can lead to deadly results. Ginger Streitmatter, is a Child Passenger Safety Technician with OSF HealthCare Children’s Hospital of Illinois. She says that outdoor temperatures can multiply in cars very quickly.
Temperatures as low as 57 degrees can still create dangerous environments for children and pets inside vehicles. Injury prevention advocacy group, Safe Kids Worldwide, says that heat stroke is the leading cause of non-crash, vehicle-related deaths in children under 15. Heat stroke is when the body is not able to cool itself quickly enough.
A child’s body will heat up quicker than an adult’s. When left in a hot car, a child’s major organs begin to shut down when internal temps reach 104 and a child can die when temps reach 107.
Streitmatter even put her own vehicle to the test. She held a surface thermometer and checked the car seat that had been sitting in a vehicle on a sunny morning in Illinois.
If you see a child left inside a hot car, Streitmatter encourages you to call 9-1-1. According to KidsAndCars.org and NoHeatStroke.org, about 38 children die each year from vehicular heatstroke.
