With more children out of school during the Summer months, there also tends to be an uptick in kids left in hot cars. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the temperature inside of a car can rise almost 20 degrees. And, Leon County Health Department spokesman Chris Tittel says that’s just within the first 10 minutes with a window cracked open.
“So, leaving babies and children and pets in cars is a big no-no in the Summer season. You want to make sure you take the babies, the children, and the pets out of the car in order to protect them from suffering from heatstroke. That’s a condition, when the body is not able to cool itself quickly enough and the body temperature raises itself to dangerous levels.”
In infants and pets in particular, Tittel says heatstroke can be very dangerous because their bodies can heat up three to five times faster than an adult’s body. One of the main reasons children get left in cars is because their routine changes and the parents or caregiver forgets. Florida is one of the top states in the nation for hot car deaths involving kids.
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