Jan Null, certified meteorologist and professor at San Jose State University, CA, has been tracking child vehicular heatstroke deaths since 1998, creating a website on deaths of children in hot cars at noheatstroke.org
According to the website:
- 687 children have died since 1998
- 54% of the children were “forgotten” by the caregiver,
- 29% were playing unintended in a vehicle,
- 17% were intentionally left in vehicle by an adult,
- and 1% were unknown
- the inside of a car can heat up by 19 degrees in 10 minutes and 29 degrees by 20 minutes, cracking the window open had little effect on heating
And if you think that this tragedy only happens in the hotter climates of the US, think again. They have occurred in 46 out of the 50 states. Here is the distribution by state, including 16 in Illinois.
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