ANGELA Jones was on the phone with her husband Scott when he suddenly realised he’d left their three-year-old daughter Charlotte in a boiling hot car.
Horrifyingly – by that point – the “sassy” tot had been trapped inside for at least four hours, when the temperature in Arizona, US, reached 98F (36C).
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It was September 2019, and Scott had been dropping his two eldest daughters off at school before he returned to his home office for a day of work.
Four hours later Angela called to ask how Charlotte, their youngest, was doing after the couple had decided to keep her out of preschool that week.
But Scott had forgotten Charlotte was also in the car with him that morning.
“All of a sudden I could just hear a panic in his voice,” Angela told Fox News Digital.
Read more on hot car deaths
“I initially thought she had gotten into the pool or something like that, and then he was like, ‘Oh, my God, I don’t think I ever got her out of the car.’
After realising his mistake, the distraught dad raced to the driveway to find his daughter baking in his car.
He called 911, but it was too late, Charlotte was already succumbing to the blistering heat.
She was given medical treatment at the scene and then rushed to a nearby hospital where she later died, according to azcentral.
The 9 red flag signs of heatstroke in your child
Heat stroke is a potentially life-threatening side effect of getting hot.
It happens when someone gets so hot their body can’t control their temperature.
In children the symptoms can include:
1. Becoming floppy and sleeping
2. Hot, flushed and dry skin
3. A headache, feeling dizzy or be confused and restless
4. Fast breathing and heartbeat
5. Seizures
6. Little or no sweating
7. Body temperature rises to 40.5C or higher
8. Loss of consciousness or passing out
9. Get worse quickly and become unresponsive
What should you do?
- Ddial 999 IMMEDIATELY, or get someone else to
- Cool them down
- Quickly move them into a cooler environment
- Remove their outer clothing
- Wrap them in a cold, wet sheet
- Keep pouring water over them
- Keep cooling them while waiting for help to arrive
- If their temperature returns to normal and they no longer feel hot to touch, you can stop cooling them
Source: NHS
One of many
Tragically, little Charlotte isn’t the only child to have met her death in this way.
On average 37 children die each year in the US of heatstroke after being trapped inside hot vehicles – often as a result of their parents having forgotten they were there.
The number of hot car deaths in northern Europe appears to be much lower than in the US.
But that’s hardly surprising given the cooler climate than the southern US states.
Between 2007-2009, there were 26 cases of heatstroke in France and Belgium, including seven fatalities, according to Child Safety Europe, external.
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents could recall no cases in the UK.
When the human body reaches temperatures above 40C (104F) the brain and other organs are at risk of swelling and death.
Children are most vulnerable because their bodies heat up three to five times faster than adults.
‘The light of our family’
Angela said Charlotte was the beating heart of their young family.
“She was our sassy one, the funny one, always making funny faces, our little ham,” the mum said.
“She was the light in our family, and we are constantly talking about her,” she added
Angela is sharing Charotte’s story in a bid to raise awareness among other parents of the dangers and risks of car heat in the summer.
“We did everything we could to protect our children, and we just never realised that this was a danger until it happened to us,” she said.
“I just want it to resonate with other people so they can have a backup plan or do things because this is a preventable tragedy and it can be stopped through your different measures,” she added.
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The 5 ways to ensure you never leave a child in a car
For many parents, the idea of accidentally leaving their baby in a hot car feels unfathomable.
They think, there is no way I would forget my baby in the car!
But the reality is, nearly 25 per cent of parents report that—at some time during a drive—they had completely forgotten that their under-3-year-old was in the car with them.
And, at times, those memory lapses can lead to tragedy: Many child hot car deaths occur when a parent unknowingly leaves their little one in a car.
So, what can we do to prevent those grave mistakes?
- Leave a clue: always place your nappy bag (or another baby item) in the front passenger seat as a visual reminder that your baby is in the car with you
- Post this: secure a note to your dashboard that reads park / look / lock to remind yourself to always look for your baby before exiting the vehicle
- Opt for backseat storage: instead of tossing items that you need to start your day (like your laptop, phone, purse, or employee badge) in the boot of your car—or on the passenger seat—store them next to Baby’s car seat so that you will always look before you leave. Some even recommend always placing your left shoe in the backseat.
- Have a caregiver plan: ask your caregiver to call you if your child has not arrived at daycare as scheduled.
- Check in: if someone besides you is driving your child anywhere, check in to make sure they arrived safely.
- Keep vehicles locked: whether in the garage or driveway, cars need to always remain locked
- Give a horn lesson: teach your child to honk the car’s horn if they ever become stuck inside a vehicle
- Keep rear fold-down seats closed: this will help prevent a child from crawling into the boot from inside the car.
- Get tech support: the BackSeat Safety app reminds the driver to check the backseat when parked, using GPS. And if you use Waze, a traffic app, you can enable a setting that will remind you to check the back seat once you reach the destination you entered into the app
Source: Happiest Baby
