A 19 Month Old Baby Dies in the Texas Heat

Imagine you are a parent of a young one and a half year old baby. As you dress your child and ready her for her day at day care, the last thing on your mind is that you will never see your baby alive again. This happened Monday to the parents of 19 month old Kamila Brown of Dallas Texas. It seems that Kamila, who attended the Tyne Gifted Achievers #2 day care center, was left and forgotten for over six hours in the sweltering day care van after a field trip. This day care center has been investigated before for many other violations but, the state says "the center always corrected them in a timely manner". The temperature in Dallas on Monday was over 102 degrees.

The man who took the baby, who at the time was struggling to hang on to life to the nearest fire station was being questioned but is not facing any charges. So far, no one has been arrested in this case, partly due to the lack of witnesses and the out come of the autopsy which was released today July 24. The results of the autopsy are said to be inconclusive.

There are some people who blame the introduction of car seats as the reason for the alarming rise in deaths of children in cars. Some say its much easier to forget children now that they are strapped in the back seat, some children even facing backwards. I know that as parents we are all busier than ever but, the one thing that should always be priority to us is the safety of our children. We as parents need to always be vigilant of where our children are. I think that car seats have been out and in use long enough for people to be aware that it is an everyday part of vehicles now. Car seats should not be thought of as attachments to vehicles, rather more like the very seat the driver is sitting on, they are that important. Although this tragic incident happened under the supervision or I should say lack thereof of a day care center, many people are not aware of the danger of leaving children unattended in a vehicle.

An article I read by Rebecca Simmons said that, A study by the Stanford University School of Medicine showed that temperatures inside cars rises dramatically even on mild days. The study states that even with outside temperatures as low as 72 degrees, a car's inside temperature heats up by an average of 40 degrees within an hour, with 80% of that increase in the first 30 minutes. The article also goes on to say that, glass windows trap heat in vehicles and in direct heat the temperature inside of a vehicle can and does rise 30 degrees per minute. Imagine the how hot it must have gotten for Kamila, and the countless other children who have died after being left in cars alone.

Children, often too young to escape, are most vulnerable because their immature respiratory and circulatory systems do not manage heat as efficiently as adults'. Leaving children in vehicles alone especially in the summer is a certain death sentence, in Texas as well as anywhere else in the country. Please think of baby Kamila when you strap your child or children in their car seat. Remember never leave children alone in cars no matter what the reason, it can not be more important than the life of a child.