Summer Heat Safety Tips For Children
FORT WORTH (CBSDFW) - Temperatures and relative humidity have North Texas feeling like it's 100 degrees. And the heat has parents keeping a close eye on their kids. But here are a couple of safety tips some aren't aware of.
"I'm very conscious of it," said Allan Minas as he and kids left Trinity Park in Fort Worth. "Because you always hear on the news that kids got left behind, heat exhaustion."
Minas takes extra precautions when the temperatures rise.
"I'm always conscious, I always bring them water," he said.
But there are safety precautions that go beyond hydration.
YouTube video taken last year shows a crowd trying to rescue a child left in a van in a department store parking lot. Someone apparently thought the girl would be OK if the window was partially open.
"Leaving the windows cracked is not providing any ventilation for that child or for the inside of that vehicle," said MedStar spokesman Matt Zavadsky. "So, just cracking the window doesn't really do anything when it comes to being inside of the car because the heat is going to rise, it's going to build up."
The girl was rescued by breaking a van window.
As important as removing a child from a hot car is how occupants return to the car.
"I turn the car on 15 minutes prior to make sure it's nice and cool in there," Minas said, which is important, especially if you have child safety seats.
"If you have a kid that's in just a onesie that has arms and legs exposed, as you put your child in the car seat if these haven't been cooled off we can have a case of the leg or the arm touches the hot plastic or the hot metal as you're putting the harnesses together," Zavadsky said. "We can touch the skin and burn the kid."
And many times parents pushing a stroller simply throw a towel over it to shade the baby.
"So you cover the stroller, the stroller doesn't have a lot of insulation so essentially you just created an oven for that child," Zavadsky said. "So, try to find some other way to keep the sun away from the child."
