801 children have died in hot cars since 1998
And if past is any guide, dozens more will be dead by the end of summer
An awful milestone was reached this past weekend.
Eight hundred children have died in hot cars since records began in 1998, according to NoHeatStroke.org.
The 800th child to die was a 4-yearold boy in St. Paul, Minnesota, who was found Saturday after he was left alone for hours in a hot SUV while his father was at work.
On Monday, a child in Lakewood, New Jersey, died in a hot car, bringing the yearly total to six and the 20-year total to 801, according to NoHeat Stroke.org.
Dozens of children will be dead in hot cars by the end of the summer if past years are any guide.
On average, 38 children die while trapped in hot vehicles every year, according to Jan Null, an adjunct professor of meteorology at San Jose State University. Last year, a record 52 children died. Null said that aside from crashes, heatstroke is the leading cause of death in vehicles for children 14 and younger.
Cars become ovens when direct sunlight heats objects inside. Temperatures can soar to 120 or 130 degrees even when the outdoor temperature is only in the 80s. The body’s natural cooling methods, such as sweating, begin to shut down once the core body temperature reaches 104 degrees. Death can occur at 107 degrees.
Children are particularly vulnerable because they have difficulty escaping a hot vehicle on their own, and their respiratory and circulatory systems can’t handle heat as well as adults.
July is usually the deadliest month for children in overheated cars. It had the highest toll of 16 deaths in 1999, Null said. “The warmer months are the biggest variable, but in summer months, people’s routines are changed, so that could be a contributor,” Null said last year.
Since the mid-1990s, the number of children who died inside hot vehicles has risen dramatically.
The requirement for children to sit in back seats after juvenile deaths from air bags peaked contributed to the climb, because children are more easily forgotten in the back seat than the front.
Forgetting a child in the car can happen to anyone, Arizona State University psychologist Gene Brewer said last year.
“Often these stories involve a distracted parent,” Brewer said. “Memory failures are remarkably powerful, and they happen to everyone. There is no difference between gender, class, personality, race or other traits. Functionally, there isn’t much of a difference between forgetting your keys and forgetting your child in the car.”
In Minnesota on Monday, Kristopher Taylor, 26, of Apple Valley was charged with second-degree manslaughter in the death of his son. The temperature had reached 70 degrees, and the criminal complaint says the boy was in the sun.
“Memory failures are remarkably powerful, and they happen to everyone.” Gene Brewer Arizona State University