WASHINGTON – The tragedy of two area children who were left alone in hot cars and died on Friday as the temperatures rose happens more frequently than you think.
Gary Karton with Safe Kids Worldwide says, “This can happen to anybody.” He says he has talked to many families who have had to go through this tragedy and the first thing they say is “they used to think it couldn’t happen to me (to them).”
There are simple ways to avoid this kind of tragedy, according to Karton. “Just as a rule never leaving your child alone in a car. We know it can be convenient sometimes if you’re just running in the store real quick and you think the baby’s sleeping,” he says. “But we’ve learned that seconds run into minutes and minutes run into tens of minutes and before you know it there’s a tragedy.”
Karton says to keep in mind that “cars heat up really, really fast.” And when a child’s temperature gets up to 104 degrees major organs can start to shut down. “When the child’s temperature gets to 107 degrees we find the child can die,” he says.
Follow Veronica Robinson and WTOP on Twitter.
