Baby Left In Hot Car For An Entire Day Is 19th Victim Of Heat Death This Year

By Anastacia Mott Austin

It’s the tragedy parents don’t even want to think about. Accidentally leaving your baby in a hot car for an entire day seems so unimaginable, most of us think, "I would never do that."

Yet for Lynn Brol, of Franklinville, New York, the same was likely true before it happened to her.

Brol left for work at a collection agency in Arcade, New York, Thursday morning as usual. Her five-month-old son Brayden was in the back in his carseat. Usually the 32-year-old mom would drop Brayden off at a daycare center near her job. For some reason, on Thursday she just forgot to drop him off.

She went to work and stayed there for an entire work day; nine hours. Temperatures in the area were in the low ‘90s. At 5:00 p.m., Brol returned to her car and discovered her son, dead from hyperthermia (heat exhaustion).

The frantic mother called 911, but it was too late.

It might be easy to sit in judgment of parents like Brol, because we think we would never do "something like that." Yet Brayden’s death is the 19th this year in the United States of a child succumbing to hyperthermia in a car.

A study published in Pediatrics in July of 2005 and updated on its own website, titled Hyperthermia Deaths of Children in Vehicles, reveals that 340 children died in the United States of vehicle heat-related causes between the years of 1998-2007. Almost 40% of those cases were caused by parents forgetting that a child was in the car. That’s 136 other parents who thought they would never do something like that.

The statistics are beyond sobering. The study, authored by Jan Null, CCM, involved testing the interior heat of different vehicles with varying outdoor temperatures ranging from 72 to 96 degrees. The testing was done both with and without the windows cracked.

Regardless of the starting temperature, the heat inside the car increased by 19 degrees in just 10 minutes, almost 30 degrees in 20 minutes, and up to 50 degrees after 1- 2 hours. There was no difference in temperatures inside the car when the windows were left cracked open.

Police estimate that the temperature inside Lyn Brol’s car, with an outside temperature in the low 90s, had peaked at about 130 degrees.

Young children have immature respiratory systems and their bodies get hotter faster than adults. "Children have a higher anabolic rate than adults do," said Dr. Lynn Sears to reporters at WMTV in Madison. "So their body heat raises two or three times as fast [as] adults do. So, given a child in a hot car and an adult in a hot car, the children will overheat much more quickly and the results can be much more severe than adults."

With 75% of the heat deaths occurring in children under two years old – in other words, those who might not be able to alert their parents of their presence, or be able to get out of a hot car by themselves – the assumption is that the majority of the cases happen because parents simply forget they are there.

Some experts attribute the rising toll in heat deaths to new airbag laws that require young children to be placed in the back seat, where they are not as easily seen.

Advocates for child safety have recommended that safety devices be installed in vehicles that can warn parents of their children’s presence in the car. After all, they say, there is an alarm that sounds if we’ve left our lights on or the keys in the ignition. One might assume that parents would just remember their children are in the car, but with our ever-busier schedules, sleep deprivation, etc., some parents are forgetting, and their children are dying.

One child safety device already on the market is called The Child Minder. (In light of the topic, the lyrics to its webpage soundtrack, "My mommy always comes back, she never will forget me" are heartbreaking.) The device is about the size of a carseat buckle, and clips onto the belt. It sounds an alarm, both on the clip and a small key-ring unit, if the parent moves more than 10 feet away from the child.

Another product being developed, similar to "The Child Minder," is The Child Presence Sensor. Developed by NASA, it is a weight sensor that fits into the car seat underneath the child. Able to detect weight as light as eight ounces, it too sounds an alarm if the parent moves too far away from the car.

The problem with these products is that parents have to buy and install them. They are remarkably easy to install, but parents would have to think that they might forget their child in the car one day – and most of us don’t.

Some child-safety experts recommend that auto manufacturers offer the features in new car packages, or that similar technology could be installed into the vehicle system itself.

Sadly, information about the new technology comes too late for Lyn Brol and little Brayden.

Said Arcade, New York police chief John Laird, to reporters, "…it’s a tragic, tragic accident." Laird added that in addition to the terrible trauma suffered by the parents in such situations, it’s very difficult for police and emergency workers as well.

"It’s the worst we have to deal with," said Laird. "Most of us have kids ourselves."