Record number of children die in hot cars in 2010

"Advocacy group counts 48 such deaths in a year of record temperatures."

While the number is fairly small, it is for the US only and includes only the children WHO DIED. There is no count for the number who may have required treatment for hyperthermia, or who may have suffered at least temporary - or permanent - injury.

A factor not obvious to some may be the almost universal use of air conditioning in vehicles in recent years, especially in warmer parts of the US. For people accustomed to such use, the windows invariably are left completely shut, and it's unlikely that someone leaving a child or a pet in the vehicle "just for a bit" would open them to provide ventillation.

Few people are likely to have any real awareness of just how rapidly the temperature inside a closed up vehicle can rise when the reefer is shut down.

And the permanent brain damage from fairly brief but non-fatal hyperthermia can be very difficult to diagnose later, after the child (or pet) "recovers" from the immediate effects. (How do you assess five years later how much less stupid your child might have been, if ... ?)

John