Posted on 06/24/2006 12:59:05 PM PDT by Pharmboy
It's a scenario that's tragically repeated dozens of times a year: a parent places a toddler in the back seat of a vehicle and later becomes distracted, leaving the child inside to swelter on a hot day.
Authorities in Payne County in north-central Oklahoma say that's what happened Sunday, when temperatures soared into the 90s and the father of 21-month-old Banyan Blaze Roberts forgot to take the sleeping boy out of a vehicle after returning from a family outing.
Banyan, whose core temperature rose to 107.9 degrees, later died in a hospital. A core temperature of 107 is considered lethal.
He is at least the fifth child to die across the nation this year after being left in a hot vehicle, said Jan Null, a San Francisco State University meteorology professor who tracks such deaths.
Other cases occurred in South Carolina, Florida, Texas and Tennessee, and involved children ranging in age from 8 months to 3 years old.
At least 31 such deaths have been recorded every year in the United States since 1998, with 42 each in 2003 and 2005, Null said. Banyan's death is the eighth child hyperthermia fatality in Oklahoma during that span.
A study by the Newton, Mass.-based Education Development Center examined 171 child hyperthermia deaths from 1995 through 2002 and found that 39 percent were attributed to a caregiver's forgetfulness, and 27 percent were the result of unattended children playing in or around vehicles.
"Every single one of these deaths is totally preventable — if the car had been locked, if you hadn't forgotten the child," Null said.
He said temperatures inside a vehicle can rise quickly — about 19 degrees in 10 minutes and 43 degrees in an hour — and "become an oven."
Anara Guard, who led the study for the Massachusetts center, said parents and other adults are sometimes too comfortable in their vehicles.
"We need to change how we think about the car," she said. "We need to regard it as a hazard, like we would with children around swimming pools."
In Banyan's case, his father, 29-year-old Justin Roberts, was taking care of him and two other children. Roberts simply became distracted, said Payne County Undersheriff Noel Bagwell, calling the case a "tragic accident."
Null said technology is available to develop reminder alarms or sensors, but two issues remain: vehicle manufacturers would have to be persuaded they're a worthwhile addition, and if an aftermarket item is marketed, parents must be persuaded to use it.
"They're going to say, 'I'm not going to forget my child.' So I think the best avenue right now is raising the level of awareness," he said. "Even the best parents make these sorts of mistakes."
Around here, in Minnesota, the state of busybodies, leaving a kid in a hot car will get the cops there PDQ. People here all have cell phones, and they'll call right now if you leave your kid in the car on a hot day.
I have a police scanner on my desk. I hear at least a dozen calls a day about kids in cars. The cops go quicktime to the location, get the kid out of the car and the mom out of wherever the heck she is.
Mom gets a citation and, if the kids in real trouble, gets to ride in the back of the black and white while the kid goes to the hospital.
It's not even mildly tolerated in the Twin Cities.
Right up there with "Floods can destroy your home."
You have the kind of busybodies that deserve a medal.
I just can agree with that. A parent HAS to do certain things, one of which is making sure their child is safe...especially from something like their own absentmindedness.
That said, anything that would help the less able Im for.
I almost did this once. A store employee had damaged my car and they had asked me to pull it around to the front of the store so they could see the damage. I did and went in to let them know it was there. It took about 5 minutes for them to come out and check it, and get the claim form ready and for me to sign. In that 5 minutes, the car was sweltering. Fortunately my daughter was fine, but it was very scary.
How do I get money to study problems with such obvious conclusions?
They probably got half a million dollars to come to that conclusion. I would have given the same conclusion for half of that.
I fail to see how preventing auto thefts will . . . oh, never mind.
Paging Captain Obvious.
Well, if someone calls in about a baby in a car during the summer in the Twin Cities, I do not think that's really being a busybody...
"Well, if someone calls in about a baby in a car during the summer in the Twin Cities, I do not think that's really being a busybody...
"
I agree. Sometimes, being a busybody is a fine thing. Busybodies are keeping an eye on things, it seems.
Well, yeah, but all of us are a bit absent minded at times, and a bit of awareness raising on this is a good thing...
Something akin to that was exactly my first thought when reading the headline--is this really 'news'?!
When a "parent" "forgets" a child in a car, isn't that just the process of natural selection?
Bill
I am glad to hear that its preventable.....I was worried that it wasn't and I was going to lose some kids. Whew! Thanks reporters for the good news.
The heck with the kids, who cares?
But what about the dogs?
Just saw an ad for a solar-powered fan you put above your window glass . . . good concept as far as it goes. What you actually need, of course, is a way of securing a vehicle with a sleeping child in it which does not require you to close the windows. Some kind of sturdy metal frame which fits in the car window and fills the opening with steel bars.
With our technology, there should be available a device that will detect carbon dioxide inside a vehicle. If the temperature reaches 100 degrees inside, an alarm goes off.
Hey--this goes for dogs too.
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