On August of 2022, Police from Osage County in Kansas was called to an address (not made public) which they found an unresponsive 2-year-old boy found in a vehicle. This marked #14 incident that year related to Pediatric Vehicular Heatstroke (PVH) case. The toddler was then transported to Topeka Stormont Vail Health facility where he was pronounced dead.
Preliminary investigations have found that the toddler may have accessed the vehicle without parent’s permission and then trapped himself in the vehicle. According to National Weather Service statistic, the temperature for the area experienced a high temperature of 92 degrees F (33 degrees C).
We have discovered cases like this in previous posting in which we have discussed different dangers that little toddlers may face related to unattended children left around vehicles. The dangers are listed below.
- Vehicles are stolen with children in it. Most of the time, they are not aware of this until they have stolen it.
- Power windows can either decapitate a child’s extremities or kill them.
- Children have been known to be strangled by seatbelts as well.
- Vehicle fires have been started by children with a lighter or matches in the vehicle.
- A small child may choke on something from inside a vehicle as children are known to put objects into their mouths.
- Children are known to remove their restraints by themselves, open the rear vehicle door and wonder off by themselves.
- There have been cases where opportunists see children who are left unattended in a vehicle and they can be abducted or had crimes conducted against them.
- Children also have known to explore in a vehicle and/or trapped in the trunk on a sunny day, which can lead to PVH occurrence.
As indicated in the last point above, this was what happened to the 2-year-old boy. Unauthorized access to vehicles can create numerous dangerous scenarios in which we cannot begin to imagine for little toddlers. As discussed in numerous postings, toddlers and young children have two important traits that they possess: they copy what adults do, and they are curious about everything around them. Therefore, leaving keys so that toddlers or children can accidentally climb into vehicles can lead to tragedies.
What can we do to minimize these types of accidents:
- Teach toddlers not to play with or around vehicles.
- Teach toddlers not to play with car keys.
- Store car keys (and spare car keys) in a safe and unreachable location.
- Always lock your vehicle after parking to avoid potential dangers.
- If possible, always try to monitor what your children or toddler are playing or where they are.
- Recheck that your vehicle is parked safely and in locked position.
From editor’s point of view, I store my car keys above a closet where my little daughter can never have access to. Always have a watchful eye on what she is doing. Because it is not only the responsible thing to do as a parent, moreover, I do not ever want to be in a situation where I would regret for not preventing a tragedy from happening to my darling daughter.
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