Children left in cars: Risky, illegal and quite common

By KATHERINE SNOW SMITH

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 30, 2000

It happens everywhere: the convenience store, the post office, the drugstore and yard sales. Parents dash in for a second and leave their children sitting in the car. No matter how many terrifying news stories we see and hear about children found suffering in scorching cars, they are still left in vehicles all the time.

St. Petersburg Fire and Rescue answers about two calls a week for children locked inside cars by themselves, Lt. Chris Bengivengo said. How many more are left inside unlocked cars?

During Florida summers, the temperature inside a parked car with no air conditioning can surpass 100 degrees within five minutes, Bengivengo said. Because many parents are aware of the dangers of a blistering hot car, they leave their children inside with the car and the air conditioning running -- which raises the chance that the child will get locked in and set the car into motion, as well as other obvious risks. Just last week at a Chevron station in St. Petersburg, a 3-year-old climbed into the front seat of a car and put it in reverse. The car then ran over the legs of a man who was trying to stop it.

Kitty Law, manager of the Valu Kleen dry cleaners on 40th Avenue N, said she sees parents leave their kids in the car while they pick up their cleaning about twice a day. The parents "are usually real antsy, looking out the window and rushing us," she said.

Nancy Denison, a St. Petersburg grandmother, said she regularly sees children left in cars while their parents shop at yard sales.

"They drive up and leave their kids in the cars, sometimes in car seats, sometimes screaming their heads off," she said. "People take their purses and their wallets and leave their children."

A Florida statute makes it illegal to leave a child unattended in a car. Drivers can receive a traffic citation. Only one such citation was issued in St. Petersburg last year, though. In some cases, depending on the circumstances, parents are charged with abuse or neglect.

Before I cast any more stones, though, I'll fess up. My weakness was the dry cleaners. Not on a regular basis, mind you, but on occasion, when my first daughter was a baby, I would leave her in the car and dash in. I only did it when she was sound asleep and if I got a parking place right in front of the glass doors.

But my stupid behavior came to an abrupt end one day when I walked out the door of the cleaners right into the wonderful lady who kept Olivia at mothers' morning out. She cheerfully asked where Olivia was. Humiliated, I had to point to the car and fumble for an explanation. But there really wasn't one. My convenience, her sleep, my husband's shirts -- none of it was worth risking my baby's safety.

My embarrassment taught me to never again leave her behind, even for a minute. (I've also switched to a drive-through cleaners and pharmacy and only stop at the pay-at-the-pump gas stations.)

Of course, the statistics that fire and rescue departments have been telling us for years should have been enough to teach me a lesson before the dry cleaners incident.

"Infants don't have the temperature regulation you have as an adult," Bengivengo said. "They are much more sensitive to variations in the temperature than we are." It doesn't take long for an infant in such heat to be subject to heat stroke and seizures, which lead to brain damage or even death.

But leaving the car running and cool is not the answer.

"Half the time we go out for a child locked in a vehicle, the car is still running and the doors locked when they closed up the car," Bengivengo said. "You get there and try to coach the child to lift the lock from the inside or push the button. Usually the kids see it as a game" and they can't or won't unlock the car.

Even with all the warnings, Bengivengo said rescue teams realize mistakes happen, sometimes just when loading or unloading the car. That's why he urges parents not to try to skirt the embarrassment and try to get the child out on their own, but instead call 911 the second a child is locked in a car.

"Medics arrive and look at the level of consciousness of the child. If necessary, they will break a window. The status of a child locked in there is most important," he told me. If the child is okay, they will watch him while waiting for a locksmith. Bengivengo warns parents against calling a locksmith themselves, even though some locksmiths advertise free service for children locked inside cars.

"Call us and let us get the locksmith. They are dispatched the same time we are, so they get there faster," he said. "If a parent is embarrassed and they call (a locksmith) on their own, they could be waiting 30 or 40 minutes. ... And within five minutes you can be in a dangerous situation."

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