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Shoe trick may prevent child deaths in hot car

Leave something you need on the back seat so you don’t forget buckled-in children

A 22-month-old boy in Georgia died June 18 after his father forgot about him in the back seat of his SUV. A 9-month-old girl in Florida died two days earlier having been left in the back of a pickup.

These tragedies could have been prevented. One simple way to make that happen: Leave something you need in the back seat.

If you are driving a child, after you put him or her in a back seat – in a car seat, booster or buckled in with a seat belt – put your left shoe back there, too.

This year, according to the Department of Geosciences at San Francisco State University, there have already been 13 deaths from children left in cars, and the summer just started. Last year, 44 children died after being left in hot cars. The heat and holidays give more reason to find a way to prevent more deaths from occurring.

The results of a recent survey, published on the SafeKids.org website found:

14 percent of parents have intentionally left their children in a parked car.

11 percent of parents admit to forgetting their child in a car.

Nearly 1 in 4 parents of a child under 3 has forgotten the child in a car.

Dads are nearly three times more likely than moms to leave a child in a parked car.

Not all deaths were caused by people forgetting. Some parents believe cracking the window will make the car cool enough. About 6 percent of the people in the Public Opinion Strategies survey cited above thought it was OK to let a child stay in a parked, locked vehicle for longer than 15 minutes.

Some deaths are caused by kids getting into cars, getting trapped and dying before anyone discovers them.

Still, a little more than half of all child heatstroke deaths in cars were caused by a parent forgetting the child was in the car. The parent is distracted, preoccupied or running on autopilot, like many busy parents of babies and toddlers. The child falls asleep. The parent gets out of the car and leaves the baby behind.

Often, safety experts say, the death comes when a parent breaks a routine.

For Reginald McKinnon of Cape Coral, Florida, it was picking up his daughter Payton from day care and taking her to the doctor. After the appointment, he put her in the rear-facing car seat on the back seat and headed back to work. He spent the day there not realizing the 17-month-old was still in the back seat. When he opened the door to his SUV to go home, Payton was dead, still strapped into her seat.

McKinnon was sentenced to five years of probation and community service for Payton’s March 2010 death. He is dedicated to honoring Payton’s memory by educating parents and friends about the risk of hyperthermia when children are left in cars.

In Marietta, Georgia, Justin Ross Harris was booked on murder charges after he forgot to drop his child at day care and went to work instead. On his drive home, he discovered his 22-month-old son was in the back seat.

What will work is some kind of system that won’t fail to remind a person there is a child in the back seat.

In 2012, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration published a report, “Reducing the Potential for Heat Stroke to Children in Parked Motor Vehicles: Evaluation of Reminder Technology.” It found reminder and detection devices to be unreliable and required too much effort from caregivers in order for them to operate.

Putting something on the back seat as a reminder isn’t a new idea. Safety groups have been pushing it for years, telling people to put something you will need when you reach your destination.

You may not always have your laptop, your purse, or your cellphone. But you do always have a shoe.

So when you put your kid on the back seat, put your left shoe back there, too.



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