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One hour is enough for a child locked in a car to die on a hot day. But after a quarter of an hour his health is in danger. Even if the car is in the shade.
Small city cars heat up the fastest. Cars standing in shaded places are also dangerous.
The exceptionally warm and sunny spring this year brought not only the first serious sunburn, but also reports of careless parents leaving their children in their cars. As reported by the portal egarwolin.pl, on Monday, May 28, in the afternoon, the Garwolin police were notified of a handicapped 4-year-old child locked in a car. As it turned out, his mother went to mass at a nearby church.
A few days earlier, a similar situation took place in Krosno Odrzańskie, where a woman left her 2,5-year-old child in the car because it did not want to go with her and went to a nearby office to arrange matters. The passersby were alerted by the crying of a boy who had been left unattended for at least 20 minutes.
How fast does the car heat up?
Meanwhile, according to the research of the team of Dr. Nancy Selover from Arizona State University, 20 minutes is enough to raise the body temperature in a child weighing 13,4 kg (i.e. a two-year-old boy) to nearly 38 degrees Celsius. And the longer a toddler stays in a hot car, the risk of hyperthermia, i.e. an increase in body temperature resulting from external factors, increases dramatically.
Dr. Selover’s team conducted a series of experiments and a mass of detailed calculations to estimate how quickly a XNUMX-year-old boy could die when locked in a car parked in a parking lot (of course, no children were involved in the experiments).
The starting point was vehicle temperature measurements carried out repeatedly, at different times of the day, during three sessions on June 25,26, 11 and July 2014, 36 in Tempe, Arizona. The outside air temperature was then, depending on the day and time, from 41,5 to XNUMX degrees Celsius. The experiment used economy-class city cars and typical American minivans, so beloved by the local middle class. Temperature was measured on the steering wheel, dashboard, seats, and also inside the vehicle, as was the humidity.
– Our tests reproduced what could happen during a shopping trip. We wanted to know what conditions will prevail in the interior of each vehicle after an hour. An hour is as much as grocery shopping takes. I knew the temperatures could be high, but I was surprised by the surface temperatures in the car, says Dr. Selover.
- The average temperature inside the vehicle standing in the sun after an hour was 46 degrees Celsius (the maximum was over 52 degrees).
- The dashboard warmed up to an average of 69 degrees (max. 85 degrees)
- Steering wheel – up to 53 degrees (max. 75 degrees),
- Seat – up to 51 degrees (max. Over 63 degrees).
In the shade, the temperatures were lower, but only a little. Average temperature:
- the interior was about 38 degrees Celsius (max. over 43 degrees),
- dashboard – 48 degrees (max. 76 degrees),
- steering wheel – 42 degrees (max. 49 degrees)
- seats – 41 (max. 46 degrees)
Interestingly, small city cars such as Ford Fiesta warmed up the fastest among the tested cars.
How quickly will my baby overheat?
In the next stage of the research, scientists created mathematical models to estimate how the child’s body will behave in such conditions, how quickly the temperature of the child’s body will rise when the car is standing in heat. These models were extremely accurate, e.g. they took into account that the toddler would be wearing a T-shirt, shorts, socks and shoes, it was also estimated what percentage of his body surface would touch the seat and how it would affect body temperature.
– We all got back to the car on hot days and we were hardly able to touch the steering wheel. So let’s imagine what it’s like to be a little baby trapped in a car seat. When someone is in the car, moist air is still exhaled. And when there is more moisture in the air, that person is unable to cool down by sweating because the sweat won’t evaporate from their skin as quickly as it should, Dr. Selover explains.
Children are not very resistant to high temperature
It is worth remembering that children are more sensitive to temperature extremes than adults. A healthy 35-year-old starts to pass out from the heat when his body temperature reaches around 42 degrees. For a child, however, 40 degrees is enough to suffer a heat stroke. And even if a toddler survives, because he has been quickly and expertly cooled, he very often suffers brain damage, which may result in attention deficit disorder, hyperactivity, and even epilepsy.
‘We hope our findings will help raise awareness of the risk and prevent further heatstroke in children. And they will also help to introduce technological solutions in cars that will inform parents that they have forgotten about children in the car, says the co-author of the study, Dr. Jennifer Vanos.
So remember that 15 minutes in a locked car is enough for your child’s body temperature to rise significantly, and after half an hour your toddler will have a fever.