Hot Car Deaths: How Can Parents Forget And Leave Their Kids Behind?

ACROSS AMERICA — Six children in four states have died in hot cars so far this year, a reminder to parents that cars can heat up quickly, even on mild days, becoming deadly in little as 10 minutes.

From 1998 through 2021, more than 925 children age 14 and younger in the United States have died of vehicular heatstroke, according to No Heat Stroke.

Per capita, that’s 15 hot car deaths per 1 million kids who died in hot cars before their 15th birthdays, the statistics show. In Texas, where triple-digit summer temperatures are common. During the 24-year period, 134 children have perished.

Other states with high fatal casualty rates during the period: Florida, 99; California, 55; Arizona, 43; and Georgia, North Carolina and Louisiana, each with 35 hot car deaths.

Research conducted by No Heat Stroke founder Jan Null, an adjunct professor and research meteorologist at San Jose State University, shows that on a 70-degree day, the temperature inside a vehicle can reach 89 degrees within five minutes. Within an hour, it can reach 113 degrees.

It’s even worse on 90-degree days. Within five minutes, the temperature can reach 100 degrees; in an hour, it can reach 133 degrees.

Consumer Reports said its tests show temperatures inside cars can reach dangerous levels for children and pets within an hour. One test showed that when the temperature outside was 61 degrees, the temperature inside reached more than 105 degrees within an hour.

Young children are at a heightened risk of dying of heatstroke, and not only due to their inability to escape a hot car. A child’s body temperature rises three to five times faster than that of an adult, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Heatstroke begins when the core body temperature reaches about 104 degrees, and children can die when theirs reaches 107.

How Does This Happen?

In many cases, a parent completely loses awareness that the child is in the car, according to David Diamond, professor of psychology, molecular pharmacology and physiology at the University of South Florida who has studied the hot car deaths phenomenon for 15 years.

That's what a Houston mother told police happened after her 5-year-old son died in a hot car Monday, news station KTRK reported. The woman reportedly told police she was busy preparing for her 8-year-old's birthday party and forgot her son was still buckled in the seat. Child protection investigators are looking into how it happened.

A month earlier in Houston, a 10-month-old died in a hot car, news station KPRC reported. Police said the baby's mother left her strapped in the car seat, and returned several hours later when she realized she had forgotten her child.

A Memphis, Tennessee, day care center closed and surrendered its license in May after the discovery a toddler had been forgotten, The Commercial Appeal reported. The Tennessee Department of Human Services is investigating, finding so far that while the day care center was authorized to transport children, the vehicle in which the 1-year-old died had not been approved.

Diamond's research shows parents can forget their kids are in the car as a result of competition among the brain’s memory systems — the “habit memory” system that allows people to rotely perform routine tasks without thinking about them, and the “prospective memory” system used to plan. The habit memory system typically prevails, and the problem is particularly acute among parents experiencing sleep deprivation or stress, according to Diamond.

“Often these stories involve a distracted parent,” Gene Brewer, an Arizona State University associate professor of psychology, said in a news release. “Memory failures are remarkably powerful, and they happen to everyone. There is no difference between gender, class, personality, race or other traits. Functionally, there isn’t much of a difference between forgetting your keys and forgetting your child in the car.”

As the national child hot-car death toll since 1998 surpasses 925, the NHTSA offers some tips to help parents and other caregivers prevent leaving children in cars during hot weather.

• Never leave a child in a vehicle unattended — even if the windows are partially open or the engine is running and the air conditioning is on.

• Make it a habit to check your entire vehicle — front and back — before locking the door and walking away. Train yourself to “Park, Look, Lock,” or always ask yourself, "Where's Baby?"

• Ask your child care provider to call if your child doesn’t show up for care as expected.

• Place a personal item such as a purse or briefcase in the back seat, as another reminder to look before you lock. Write a note or place a stuffed animal in the passenger's seat to remind you that a child is in the back seat.

• Store car keys out of a child's reach, and teach children that a vehicle is not a play area. A quarter of all hot car deaths occur because the child got into an unlocked car, not because a parent left them inside, according to the NHTSA.