According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Association (NHTSA), about 40 children a year die from heatstroke, either because they were left or became trapped in a car. That's about one child every 10 days killed in a hot car.
HEATSTROKE FACTS
The majority of hot car deaths — 53% — happen because someone forgets a child in a car. You may be asking yourself: How does this happen? Families who lost a loved one thought the same thing at one point, but then the tragedy happened to them. Hot car deaths don't just occur in the summer heat. On average, the first vehicular heatstroke of the year happens in March, according to Jan Null, who has been tracking such deaths since 1998. Among the trends he discovered over the years:
About 46% of the time when a child was forgotten, the caregiver meant to drop the child off at a daycare or preschool.
Thursdays and Fridays — the end of the workweek — have had the highest deaths.
More than half of the deaths (54%) are children under 2 years old.
Everyone Should Keep Their Car Locked
Hot car deaths don’t just happen when a child is forgotten. The second leading cause — 25% — of such deaths are children getting into unattended vehicles. Get in the habit of always locking your car doors and trunk, year-round. The temperature inside a car can reach over 115 degrees when the outside temperature is just 70 degrees.
Never Leave a Child Alone
While all types of hot car deaths are preventable, the third leading cause of these deaths — knowingly leaving a child — is the most preventable. Never leave a child alone in a parked car. Rolling windows down or parking in the shade does little to change the interior temperature of the vehicle. A child’s body temperature can rise three to five times faster than an adult’s.
Pet Safety
The temperature inside your vehicle can rise almost 20º F in just 10 minutes, and almost 30º F in 20 minutes. The longer you wait, the higher it goes. At one hour, your vehicle's inside temperature can be more than 40 degrees higher than the outside temperature. Even on a 70-degree day, that's 110 degrees inside your vehicle!
Your vehicle can quickly reach a temperature that puts your pet at risk of serious illness and even death, even on a day that doesn't seem hot to you. And cracking the windows makes no difference.