Comparatively, a child’s life is far more fragile than an adult’s. There are certain conditions a child cannot survive. One of these conditions is heat. Although the year 2016 has not ended, a disturbing reality has been revealed by statistics regarding children being left in hot cars in the United States.
Between July 22 and 24 2016, four children reportedly lost their lives in cars across the United States. The parents had forgot about them, and left them behind to die from heatstroke.
Those four deaths bring the total number of children who have died through the carelessness of their parents to 23 so far this year, in the United States.
According to statistics, between 1998 and 2009, an average of 37 children died from heatstroke in cars in the United States. However, from 2010 onwards, the number increased dramatically. It is estimated that 241 children have died from vehicular heatstroke since 2010.
Professor of Psychology, Molecular Pharmacology and Physiology at the University of South Florida, David Diamond said the epidemic of children dying in hot cars in the United States is a tragedy that can be prevented if parents take extra care of their children.
Professor Diamond revealed he has been studying the human brain and memory since 1980, and it is surprising to him that parents could forget that their children are in the car with them, leaving them to die from heatstroke.
“It seemed incomprehensible that parents could leave a child in a car and then go about their daily activities, as their child dies of hyperthermia in a car that reaches scorching temperatures,” Diamond said.
Diamond has since studied the brain in an effort to unravel the mystery behind a parent’s ability to easily forget their children in cars. Based on his research and expertise, Professor Diamond has developed an hypothesis as to how this tragedy occurs to parents, costing them their children.
Professor Diamond explained what he has theorized from his study on the issue: “This type of memory failure is the result of a competition between the brain’s ‘habit memory’ system and its ‘prospective memory’ system – and the habit memory system prevails. Prospective memory refers to the planning and execution of an action in the future, such as planning to take a child to daycare. Habit memory refers to tasks that involve repetitive actions that are performed automatically, as in routinely driving from one location to another, such as from home to work.”
According to a study conducted by the Stanford University School of Medicine, the temperature inside a parked car can rise as high as 96 degrees F on a sunny day.
The study also showed that a car’s interior can heat up by an average of 40 degrees F within an hour of parking, regardless of the temperature outside. Even on a relatively cool day, the study said the temperature inside a parked car can rise sharply. The study concluded that the temperature inside a car can skyrocket after just a few minutes of being parked. It also added that parking in the shade, or leaving the windows cracked, does very little to reduce the temperature inside the car.
KidsAndCar.org, an advocate group for children’s safety in cars, has urged parents to take an alarm with them in cars, so that it can remind them of their child’s presence and prevent them from leaving the child behind.
Some people have also said parents should be held accountable for any reckless act, including leaving their children to die from heatstroke. It is believed this will serve as a deterrent, and will force parents to keep a close eye on their children.
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