Officials ask residents not to leave kids in hot cars

By Laura Johnson | Alex City Outlook

Published Tuesday, July 7, 2009

National media outlets have been educating parents about the ills of leaving their children in unattended cars for decades, but still, American children die from being enclosed in the heat of a vehicle.

“You put a child in the back seat of a car in a car seat and it’s 100 degrees outside and 100 percent humidity…their bodies fall apart,” said Dr. Eric Tyler, a pediatrician with Pediatric Associates of Alexander City.

Officials warn against leaving children unattended any time during the year because even on days when the temperatures are relatively mild, a car’s interior can overheat within a matter of minutes. But with summer in full swing, leaving a child unattended inside a vehicle can be potentially deadly.

Children’s bodies are less able to cool down than adults, and the controlled environment in a car makes the likelihood of suffering injury or death even more likely. Children sweat less than adults do, which increases their likelihood to overheat. Inside an enclosed car, there is no breeze to help cool them off.

“The potential (to overheat) is here with this kind of weather,” Capt. Willie Kennedy of the Alexander City Police Department said. “There are several things you can do to endanger the welfare of a child, and this is one of them.”

But it is not always a case of carelessness. In some cases, some of which have led to death, adults have left their sleeping children in smoldering hot vehicles for hours after simply forgetting them. In other incidents, the child accidentally locks himself inside but does not know how to unlock the vehicle.

“They don’t have the ability to control their environment,” Tyler said. “Young children don’t always understand the environment they are in.”

Incidents like this rarely happen in Tallapoosa County, but when they do, careless caretakers can face jail time. In Alabama, those who leave children unattended in cars can be arrested on child endangerment charges, which carry sentences up to 12 months behind bars.

“From time to time, and not on a regular basis, we do get calls like that,” Kennedy said. “Our citizens are good about calling.”

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