Never Leave Kids Alone In The Car

Susan Koeppen Warns Parents And Caregivers

(CBS) 
Fennell notes, "If you are the dad and you always take the kid to day care and maybe mom has to take the kid to day care that day, just have some good checks and balances in place to ensure that the child arrives at the destination safely."

It is part of the job of Trooper Donna Tadiello from the Connecticut State Police to drive in and out of rest areas and commuter parking lots looking for kids who may have been left alone in a car. And she says she sees kids left behind in cars all the time.

In Connecticut, if you leave a child younger than 12 alone in a vehicle, you could be charged with a felony. And troopers have a warning for parents: Cars can get dangerously hot, faster than you might think.

Tadiello explains, "Within minutes, within seconds, the vehicle's temperature - the inside temperature - can heat up even if the outside temperatures are in the mid 70s. If the windows are up and the sun is beating through the windows, the temperature can rise to very dangerous levels."

Koeppen wanted to see what would happen when she put a thermometer in the backseat of a SUV on a sunny 90-degree day in New York City. Within an hour, the heat rose to 122 degrees, deadly to a child.

To prevent children from becoming trapped in hot cars, even NASA has gotten involved. It has developed a safety system that would alert parents, if a child was left strapped in a car seat.

It's called the Child Presence Sensor. Here's how it works: A device is placed in the child's car seat. If a parent walks away with the baby still inside the car, an alarm attached to a key chain will go off.

NASA's William Edwards says, "The only way to cut off the alarm is for the driver to go back to the car and get the child, and the alarm will reset."

Russell supports a new federal bill that would require that sort of warning device in vehicles; an alarm that tells drivers a passenger is still in the backseat. In the meantime, she says, parents need to be diligent.

"Never think that this can't happen to you," she says,."And do everything in your power to prevent it from happening. Make a habit of always checking the backseat. Never, ever, intentionally leave a child alone in a vehicle. Not for a minute, not for a second, because those seconds could mean your child's life."

Experts say many of these cases do not involve deadbeat parents. These are loving, caring, and well educated parents, like doctors and lawyers, who forget their children in the backseat.

Here are some tips to ensure your child is not left behind:

• If you have a briefcase or a purse and you're heading to work, make sure you put that purse or the briefcase in the back seat. It forces you to come around to look, and you see your briefcase. You see the child.
  
  
• With the child comes the diaper bag. Put the child in the back seat, the diaper bag in the front seat with you. A visual cue that you have a child in the back seat. Also put a teddy bear up front with you. It is another visual reminder there's a child in the back seat.
  
  
• If you see a child in a vehicle, call 911 immediately.