Early uptick in hot car deaths an alarming reminder to parents

With triple-digit temperatures already being reported in the southwest, it’s the time of year for advisories about the dangers of heatstroke in a parked car. A typical experiment is to see someone fry and egg on the hood of a car or timing how quickly the temperatures rise inside a car on a 100-degree day. All these serve as good reminders of heat-related dangers, but the fact is that enclosed cars become deadly with temperatures as low as 70 degrees. 

As of June 4, there have been eight reported heat-related deaths of children inside automobiles across the United States. The average outside temperature was 85 degrees in these eight cases.

A study by San Francisco State University and published in the Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics states that on average 38 children die each year from heatstroke related illnesses after being left in a car. That makes 2014 an above average year so far. With the primary months for heatstroke deaths being June, July and August, eight deaths this early in the year is unusually high.

Safe Kids Worldwide, a global organization dedicated to reducing preventable injures in children, suggests a handy acronym to preventing heatstroke death: ACT.

A: Avoid heatstroke death by never leaving a child alone in a car. The temperature can climb rapidly in the enclosed area in just one minute. Locking the car at all times will keep kids out of the car when not in use.

C: Create reminders by putting something in the back seat next to the child that you will need when you arrive at your destination. It is easy to become distracted especially if you are out of your normal routine and forget to take everything out of the car.

T: Take action if you see a child unattended in an enclosed car. Call 911 immediately.

The temperature inside a car can climb rapidly, especially on a sunny day. A temperature of 80 degrees can produce temperatures of above 100 degrees inside a car within 30 minutes. Combined with the fact that infants and toddlers can’t cool off as quickly as adults, heatstroke occurs quickly on what might seem like a comfortable day outside.

Police in Tempe, Arizona, arrested a mother and booked her on one count of child abuse after she allegedly left her 1-year-old toddler in her SUV unattended for 40 minutes. The boy is expected to make a full recovery, but Tempe police Sgt. Michael Pooley told the website azfamily.com the incident served as a reminder about the dangers of leaving children in cars.

“Right now, the temperatures are starting to get hotter,” Pooley told the website. “We always need to keep track of where our children are, especially when we take them out. A lot of times we forget about them when they're sleeping in the vehicle. They fall asleep and we want to do something really quickly, and we want to leave our child in the vehicle. And although it’s tempting, although it may be convenient, we’ve seen too many tragedies happen like this.”

Of course as temperatures climb even higher the speed in which a car heats up increases dramatically. The long-range outlook for June, July and August continues to suggest that above-average temperatures will continue for much of the west, south and eastern United States.

Al Jazeera meteorologists David Warren and Nicole Mitchell contributed to this report.