Officials warn about leaving children or pets in a hot car
LEXINGTON, Ky. (ABC36 NEWS NOW) – The official start of summer may still be a few days away, but it certainly already feels like it’s here with temperatures reaching in the 90’s this weekend.
With the warmer weather law enforcement in central Kentucky are reminding people to ‘look before you lock’, to make sure you don’t leave a child or pet in the car.
“Every year we know on average about 40 children die from heatstroke,” said District Chief Jeremy Cooper, with the fire department. “Over 90 percent of those deaths are attributed to a vehicle. We know that within 10 minutes, even with temperatures in 60 or 70 degrees, in 10 minutes a vehicle can reach 170 degrees internally.”
Those numbers are with car windows rolled down two inches.
Research shows 52% of those children were forgotten in the car, 29% were playing in an unattended vehicle and 18% were intentionally left in the car by an adult.
“You say that it won’t be you, but then we have it happen every year in the country, it happens that someone dies in a hot car,” said KSP Trooper Joshua Satterly. “We’ve already had two in 2024 in the country.”
A body temperature of 104 is all it takes to cause a heat stroke.
“Signs and symptoms would be delirium, stroke, seizure, coma or even unconsciousness or death,” said Cooper.
Experts say one way to help make sure you don’t leave a child or pet in the car, is to put something in the backseat that you know you’ll need to take from the car when you park.
“If you have to put your phone in the backseat, if you have to put your purse in the back seat, if you have to put something important to you in the backseat that’s going to make you retrieve it when you get out of the car, it’s going to make you check the backseat.”
In Kentucky, a person could face second degree manslaughter charges for leaving a child under 8 years of age or an elderly person in a car when the circumstances lead to death.
As of now, there are no criminal charges for someone that leaves their pet in the car.
