Preventing Hot Car Deaths
Nearly 900 children have died in the past 25 years after being left inside vehicles that got too hot, making pediatric vehicular heatstroke a leading cause of transportation-related death for children in the United States. But it is preventable. “There is no safe amount of time to leave a child in a vehicle,” says Dr. Sammy L. Turner, an Emergency Department physician at Washington Regional Medical Center. In just 10 minutes on a mild 85-degree day, the temperature inside a vehicle can rise to 104 degrees. Studies show that even leaving windows “cracked open” does not reduce the rate of temperature rise inside the vehicle....