Hot-Car Deaths: How Many Kids Have Died In Minnesota

While it's illegal to leave a dog or a cat in a vehicle during dangerous weather conditions, Minnesota does not have specific laws regarding leaving children in cars. That doesn't mean it's ever safe to do.

Summer has barely arrived, but children are already dying this year from being left in hot cars, which can heat up quickly even when the temperature outside is cool and comfortable. Experts say hot-car deaths, which claimed 837 children under age 14 from 1990 to 2017, are entirely preventable.

In Minnesota, five infants and children died between 2001 and 2013 from being left in hot cars.

On average, 37 kids a year die of vehicular heat stroke, according to national statistics. Excluding crashes, that’s the leading cause of death in vehicles for children 14 years and younger.

Hot-car deaths can occur anywhere, though they happen most often in states where temperatures are the hottest.

From 1990-2017, only two states — Alaska and Vermont — reported no deaths due to vehicular heat stroke, according to KidsAndCars.org, which keeps a database of these tragedies.

Consumer Reports said last fall that its tests show temperatures inside cars can reach dangerous levels of children and pets within an hour. One test showed that when the temperature outside was 61 degrees, the temperature inside reached more than 105 degrees within an hour.

But on warm summer days, the interior of cars can become deadly in as little as 10 minutes, Jan Null, an adjunct professor and research meteorologist at San Jose State University, told Patch in an email. It’s never OK to leave a child unattended in a car, he said.

Hot cars are especially dangerous for children and, especially, babies, who dehydrate more quickly than adults and can’t regulate their body temperature. Their bodies heat up three to five times faster than adults’, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

This year, kids have died in Charleston, South Carolina, and Miami, Florida. In both cases, they had been forgotten by their parents.

“The fact is that heatstroke tragedies happen to loving, caring, attentive parents,” the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said. “The vast majority of these tragedies happen when a child is mistakenly left behind in a vehicle or when an unattended child gains access to a vehicle.”

In many cases, a parent completely lose awareness that the child is in the car, David Diamond, professor of psychology, molecular pharmacology and physiology at the University of South Florida told ABC News in 2016.

“It’s our brain habit system. It allows you do do things without thinking about it. That plan we have to stop a habit seems to get suppressed. We lose awareness of our plan to interrupt that habit,” Diamond said. “These different brain systems actually compete against each other.”

The problem is particularly acute among parents experiencing sleep deprivation or stress, Diamond said.

“You sort of go in autopilot mode,” he said, explaining how a routine drive from home to work, instead of home to the daycare center, is automatic.

However, in some cases, “I forgot” is just a ruse. In 2016, Justin Ross Harris of Marietta, Georgia, was convicted of murder in the death his 22-month-old son, Cooper, who was left in a hot car for seven hours in 2014 while Harris went to work. According to testimony at his trial, Harris’ web searches revealed that he longed for a “child-free lifestyle.”

The NHTSA offers some tips for parents:

• Look before you lock: Get into the routine of always checking the back seats of your vehicle before you lock it and walk away.
• Leave yourself a gentle reminder: Get in the habit of keeping a stuffed toy or other momento in your child’s car seat, then move it to the front seat as a visual reminder when the baby is in the back seat. Or, place your phone, briefcase or purse in the back seat when traveling with your child.
• Get in the practice of routine checks: If someone else is driving your child, or your daily routine has been altered, make a call to make sure the child arrived safely at the destination.
• Keep your keys out of children’s reach: Nearly three in 10 heatstroke deaths happen when an unattended child gains access to a vehicle, the NHTSA said.

Beth Dalbey of Patch’s national staff contributed to this report.

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