DeLauro Warns Connecticut Families Not To Leave Children in Hot Cars This Summer

NEW HAVEN, CT—Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (CT-3) today joined public health officials and children’s advocates to warn Connecticut families about leaving children and pets in hot cars. They highlighted the “Where’s Baby: Look Before You Lock” campaign, a partnership between the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital, the Connecticut Department of Transportation and Safe Kids Connecticut.

“Hot car deaths are a widespread and serious problem,” said DeLauro. “Last year, this tragedy struck our own state when little Benjamin Seitz, just 15 months old, died after being left in a car for seven hours in Ridgefield. Every such death is horrifying and heartbreaking. But each one is also preventable. In fact, there are simple steps parents and care givers can take to ensure that children are not left in their cars. That is why this event is so important. It is especially timely now that summer is approaching and the hotter temperatures increase the danger to children. Parents and care givers need to be aware of the risks.”

“As a pediatric ED doctor and parent I am reminded every day how distraction and mental lapses can have grave consequences to children. A car heats up 20 degrees in 10 minutes from sun! Eighty percent of deaths occur because parents forget, not because they think the child is OK in the car on a hot day. Children make significantly more heat than adults because they higher metabolic rates and they have decreased ability to sweat off heat. In the hot car they also absorb the heat five times faster because they have more surface area compared to their total mass. In young infants this is a higher risk of death then being struck by lightning with up to 70 percent of victims dying,” said Dr. Marc Auerbach, Associate Pediatric Trauma Medical Director, at Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital.

Nationally, 38 children pass away, on average, in hot cars each year.


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