Never Leave Children In Hot Cars: Austin PD

AUSTIN, TX — Amid high temperatures throughout Texas, the Austin Police Department is warning parents and guardians about leaving children in hot cars following the weekend death of a child in Galveston.

A 1-year-old child left inside a hot car Saturday for about five hours died in the coastal city, according to media reports. The Galveston Police Department told the Houston Chronicle, the child's parents left the child in their Chevrolet Tahoe when they went to work at 11 a.m. By the time they returned at around 4 p.m., the child was unresponsive and later died.

The high temperature in Galveston when the child was left inside was 92 degrees, weather officials told the Chronicle. Inside the truck, temperatures likely exceeded 135 degrees, officials added.

According to the website NoHeatStroke.org, the Galveston incident marked the 13th time a child has died of heat exhaustion in the U.S. this year after being left alone in cars reaching oven-like temperatures. It's the second such death in Texas, second only to Florida where three children have died in hot cars so far this year.

Related story: With Summer's Peak, Hot Car Deaths Among Children Rise

And the summer is just getting started, heightening fears of more such deaths in the months ahead. The child's death on Saturday comes in the wake of a similar fatality in the North Texas town of Providence Village, Texas, two days before, according to NoHeatStroke.org. In that case, a 4-year-old child died in a hot car amid outside temperatures of 98 degrees.

"It's hot outside," police wrote on Twitter. "Never leave children unattended in a car, not even for a minute!"

The likelihood of death in oven-like cars is exacerbated by the summer heat — typically oppressive to all but potentially lethal to small children. Last week, the National Weather Service issued heat advisories three days in a row starting on Wednesday as heat indices made the days feel like they were up to 114 degrees.

National Weather Service officials make a point to publicize a chart showing just how fast temperatures can rise inside cars even in temperate climate. Cars heat up 7 degrees in 5 minutes and 47 degrees in one hour, weather officials have noted. Here is their chart:

Chart via National Weather Service

The death toll among children is tied to their anatomy: "There is no safe amount of time to leave children alone in the car," Dr. Nathan Allen, an emergency medicine doctor at the University of Chicago, wrote on WebMD. "Kids are more susceptible and at higher risk for heat-related illness and injury than adults because their bodies make more heat relative to their size and their abilities to cool through sweating are not as developed as adults."

Parenting magazine calls the incidences of children dying in hot cars a "heart wrenching epidemic" in a recent article titled "Tragedy in the Back Seat." The magazine offers its own tips to avoid such tragedies:

• "First and foremost," the article's author writes, "always put your cell phone, purse or briefcase and anything else you'll need that day, on the floor of the backseat. When you retrieve it at the end of the ride, you'll notice your child."
• Parenting also advises parents/guardians to seat the younger (or quieter) child behind the front passenger seat, in the parent's line of vision. Several of the children referenced by the magazine in its piece on hot car deaths were those who were situated behind the driver's side.
• The magazine offers a tip that could be dubbed the "Teddy Bear" test. Authors suggest parents put a teddy bear or other stuffed animal in the car seat when it's empty, moving it to the front passenger seat when the child is placed in the carrier as a reminder that the baby is on board.
• Ask the child's babysitter or daycare provider to always call if the child isn't dropped off as scheduled.
• Develop a habit of always opening the back door of the car after parking, just to make sure no child was left there.

• "Never assume someone else — a spouse, an older child — has taken a young kid out of her seat," the article reads. "Such miscommunication has led to more than a few hot-car deaths.
• Some parents and guardians might want to invest in a device designed to help them remember their tiny passengers. For example, the Cars-N-Kids monitor plays a lullaby when the car stops and a child is in the seat. One such product is the ChildMinder System that sounds an alarm if you walk away and leave your child in the seat ($69.95; babyalert.info).

• Put visual cues in your office and home. Static-cling decals reminding you to check the car seat are available at Emmasinspirations.com and Kidsandcars.org.