Hot cars can kill kids – and it doesn’t take long

The inside of a car is basically a greenhouse. When the car sits still in the sun, it can get hot very quickly.

It takes just 10 minutes for the temperature in a car to go up 20 degrees, a situation that can prove deadly for a child.

“If a child’s temperature rises to unsafe levels, within 15 minutes a child’s organs can begin to shut down,” Kirsten Heron, a physician assistant at Weeks Family Medicine in Bend, said Thursday,

Kids are more susceptible because their body temperature can rise five times faster than an adult’s.

Once their body reaches 104 degrees, they may begin to suffer life-threatening injuries to their brain and kidneys.

And a child can die when his or her body reaches 107 degrees.

On Wednesday, Bend police responded to a call that a baby was alone in a car at the Home Depot parking lot.

Lt. Clint Burleigh explained what police found when they arrived: “The vehicle inside, after the doors were open and after several minutes, was still over 100 degrees.”

The child’s father walked out to his car as police were starting to try to get into his car, Burleigh said/

“He was very cooperative with the investigation and understanding of why we were there and the concerns the public had and we had with what happened,” Burleigh said.

Since 1998, nationwide 718 children left in cars have died of heat stroke. Eighteen of those happened in 2015 and five deaths were in Oregon

Heron wants parents to remember: “Check your car every time. Make sure you don’t have any children in there you didn’t know were in there, and remind yourself that the baby comes with you or the child comes with you, regardless of age, every time,” she said.

Because unlike adults, a child can’t always get out of a dangerous situation.