Freesia DeNaples Photo
CIty human services chief Martha Okafor, Kennedy, DeLauro, Blumenthal, Borrup, and Auerbach.
On any other morning, 15-month-old Benjamin Seitz would have been on his way to his daycare center. But one summer morning, Benjamin was brought straight to work with his dad, and was left in the car for seven hours, resulting in the unthinkable. Benjamin was pronounced dead later that same day.
A year later, as another summer approaches, officials gathered in Fair Haven to get the word out: “Look before you lock.” And don’t leave children in hot cars.
U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, and local health officials delivered that message at a parking lot on the corner of Poplar and Grand Avenue.
“We can’t go by today[‘s weather], because it’s cold,” DeLauro joked as rain sprinkled around a tent that protected the speakers. “But the issue is hot car deaths. Hot car deaths are a widespread problem, and they are a serious problem.”
Even when temperatures don’t seem too high, cars can heat up 20 degrees in just 10 minutes, making a mild day outside turn deadly inside the car. When outside temperatures are at 60 degrees, the heat inside the car can reach up to 110. Because children’s bodies heat up three to five times faster than adults’, this puts them at an even higher risk for heat stroke.
Benjamin Seitz’s death, in Ridgefield, sparked four organizations — Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital, the Connecticut Department of Transportation and Safe Kids Connecticut — to form a “Where’s Baby: Look Before You Lock” campaign.
“Every such death is horrifying. It’s heartbreaking. But each one is also preventable,” DeLauro said. “Parents and caregivers need to be aware of the risks, they need to be aware of what they can do to reduce or eliminate these risks, and they need the tools to help the children who may be in danger from heat stroke.”
The effects of being locked in a hot car can begin to show up after just 20 to 30 minutes, and even faster when the child is younger, according to Marc Auerbach, associate pediatric trauma medical director at Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital.
“If you see this happening, please call your police department,” Auerbach said. “If you see something, say something.”
Some tips for parents and caregivers for remembering children in the backseat: Set a reminder on your cell phone. Leave one shoe in the backseat with the child, since you wouldn’t be able to leave the car with just one shoe on. Take a toy of the child’s along for the ride with you to put in the front seat.
Kevin Borrup represented Safe Kids Connecticut, an organization that works to prevent childhood injury, whether it be via water safety, playground safety, sports safety, or, in this case, motor vehicle safety.
“What many people don’t realize is that in about 30 percent of these cases, a child has gotten inside of the car and an adult did not know about it,” Borrup said.
Borrup urged that if you do park your car in the driveway, make sure that the car is always locked.
City health director Byron Kennedy spoke about the public health issue at hand.
“As a public health agency, one of our main focuses is to prevent premature death, and to be quite frank, it doesn’t get much worse than dying as an infant,” Kennedy said. “We know that the overwhelming majority of the children that die are five years of age or less, and nearly a third of them are less than one year of age.”
Other tips: Keep the keys close to your side at all times. Always check the back seat and trunk before you leave the car and lock the doors for the day.
DeLauro said Congress will be considering measures to protect citizens who break into cars if they have a strong belief that there is a child trapped inside the vehicle; and to allow for alarms in cars that would be triggered if a child has been left inside.
Blumenthal closed the conference with a final message directed towards parents.
“We have some really smart professionals here, but at the end of the day, this issue is about parents,” Blumenthal said. “It’s about parents having mental wherewithal, and caring to make sure their children are safe.”
When the statistics show that over the past 16 years, more than 600 children have died due to being locked in the car for too long, it’s clear that there needs to be some sort of change, he said.
“No child should be locked in a car,” Blumenthal said, then said again, and then one more time. “It can’t be repeated enough.”