Hot-car deaths rise for children in 2010

Hot-car deaths rise for children in 2010At least 49 children died last year of heatstroke while trapped in hot cars, trucks, vans or SUVs, according to meteorologist Jan Null of San Francisco.This is the most deaths nationwide in a year since Null began keeping track in 1998.

"I really wish we knew why this year was so horrific," says Null, an adjunct professor at San Francisco State University.

Parts of the country may have been hotter than normal, but such fatalities can happen even at relatively normal temperatures.

The year's final death was on Oct. 3, in Miramar, Fla., when a 1-year-old girl died after being left inside a vehicle for several hours, according to The Miami Herald.

Null says at least 494 children have died since 1998 from heatstroke (also known as hyperthermia) in vehicles in the USA. In an average year, 38 children die from being trapped in hot vehicles.

Although July is the deadliest month for children in cars, it's not strictly a summertime issue. Null's research shows that children have died as early as February and as late as December.

"One of the take-aways from my research is that it does not have to be an extremely hot day for these incidents to happen," he says.

Texas had the most such deaths last year with 13, followed by Florida with six deaths and Arizona, Georgia, Tennessee, Ohio and Kentucky with three each.

Cars transform into ovens when direct sunlight heats objects inside. Temperatures can soar to 120 or 130 degrees even when the outdoor temperature is only in the 80s. "Hyperthermia can sneak up on you," Null says.

People can lose consciousness. The body's natural cooling methods, like sweating, can shut down once the core body temperature reaches 104 degrees; death occurs at 107 degrees, Null says.

Children are particularly vulnerable, Null says, because they have difficulty escaping from a hot vehicle on their own, and their respiratory and circulatory systems can't handle heat as well as adults'.

Null says children should never be left in vehicles for any period of time.

"I'm an advocate for zero time," he says. "You don't leave a child in the car for a 10-minute run into the bank because it ends up being 30 minutes because the person in front of you has 14 foreign checks to cash."

Since the mid-1990s, the number of children who died of heat exhaustion inside vehicles has risen dramatically. Null says one reason for that was the requirement for children to sit in back seats after juvenile deaths from air bags peaked in 1995. Children are more easily forgotten in the back seat instead of the front.

There have been no children's deaths from front-seat air bags since 2003, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Null has been working recently with the National Weather Service about raising awareness as it issues heat alerts. Last summer, he says, the weather service started mentioning not to leave children in hot vehicles and adopted the slogan "Beat the Heat, Check the Back Seat."

Contributing: Associated Press

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