Bay Area Heat Wave: Expert Explains Dangers of Heat Stroke in Children Left in Cars in Hot Weather

SAN JOSE, Calif. (KGO) — The Bay Area heat causes our entire brains to feel drained and sometimes even forgetful. But forgetting your child in the car on a hot day can be fatal, and it’s happened 35 times across the country this year.

Luckily, there are things you can do to keep your little ones safe.

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For parents out there, this scenario may sound familiar:

You come home from the grocery store, perhaps distracted by a phone call, and your child is asleep in the car seat.

You turn off your car and continue your conversation in your home. But what remains in the back seat: your child.

Given our recent heat wave in the Bay Area, Noheatstroke.org founder Jan Null says the temperature of a car can quickly make this moment deadly.

“With 90 degrees today in some places in the Bay Area and perhaps even hotter temperatures, we’re looking at over 135 (degrees),” Null said. “These are simply not bearable temperatures for an adult, but certainly not for a child.”

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Null says temperatures rise 20 degrees in the first 10 minutes after a car is parked – which would be about 120 degrees based on Thursday’s highs in San Jose.

Heat that children and toddlers cannot handle because their internal temperature rises three to five times faster than adults.

“So you and I can be in a car that’s 120 or 130 degrees and we would get very uncomfortable very quickly,” Null said. “But within a short period of time it can be fatal to a child.”

This year it was fatal 35 times nationwide.

Null says about a quarter of the cases were due to negligence – believing it wasn’t too hot to leave a child in the car.

In another 25% of cases, children end up alone in the car.

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But half of deaths result from accidents in which a child is left in a car seat. Like what happened in Moraga in 2018 when Lily Aracic died.

“It affects the entire socioeconomic spectrum, from skilled workers to the unemployed,” Null said.

Null says there are ways to help you remember.

Some cars are equipped with safety reminders for children in the back seat, but he says you can use items as reminders.

You can put important items such as a wallet or handbag in the back seat or an item in the front seat such as: B. a stuffed toy to remember your little one.

These are steps that seem simple, but can be life-saving on hot days like today.