National Heat Stroke Prevention Day!

July 31st is National Heat Stroke Prevention Day!

Since my nephew's death in 2005 from heat stroke in a locked car, I've become very aware of the dangers of kids in and around cars. Prior to that, it was just a thought in the back of my mind, but it was one of those "it will never happen to me," or "never happen to my family" kind of things...

Well, it did happen to us. It happened to Riley.

So far this year, 23 kids have already died in hot cars across our nation.

Kids and Cars is an organization that tracks the data relating to child safety in and around cars. They work for legislative changes to protect children from the dangers that cars pose to them, and they educate the community about potential dangers that they may otherwise not be aware....

Did you know that children are particularly vulnerable to heat stroke since their body temperature can rise 3-5 times faster than an adults???

More than half of the hyperthermia deaths in these situations are children who were unknowingly left in cars. These were not children who had parents or caregivers intentionally leave them in harm's way. These were average parents, who got distracted by their busy lives, or stressed, or fatigued, or had a change in their normal routine, or quite simply had their memory fail them. 

The next largest group of hyperthermia deaths occurred in cases where children got themselves into the vehicles, without the knowledge of a parent/caregiver. This was the case with our little Riley.

Anyhow....I would be remiss to let this day pass by without mention, and without sharing the resource that is Kidsandcars.org.

Here is a link to their site, which includes ALL KINDS of education regarding hyperthermia deaths, their "Look before you lock" campaign, the dangers of power windows, frontover and backover dangers, etc.
Kidsandcars.org