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The Hi-Desert Star’s View: Parked car is no place for kids, pets
With its heated metal components and crevices that let hot air flow in, a vehicle left in the sun vehicle begins to function like an oven.
So please, this summer, do not leave your children or pets locked inside the car.
Already this year, at least 10 small children have died after being left inside a hot vehicle, according to San Francisco State University.
Last year, at least 29 children left in hot vehicles died from hyperthermia.
If you do leave your child in a car, he or she will first suffer the discomfort heat stress. Next, the child will become sick from heat exhaustion, with weakness, dizziness and fainting.
If left in the vehicle too long, your child will succumb to heat stroke. The nervous system fails and the child becomes delirious, suffers from convulsions and eventually falls into a coma. Death can result.
And what about dogs left in the car?
As everyone knows, dogs don’t sweat — they pant. Blood traveling through the dog’s body captures the heat and carries it with small amounts of water to its mouth, where the heat and water are released as vapor from the panting mouth. It’s a great system — unless your dog is trapped in a tiny, hot space.
Then, the hot, muggy air panted out by the dog becomes trapped in the car until the atmosphere can’t accept any more vapor from the dog’s mouth, and the heat stays inside the dog.
By now, you’re dog is starting to get stressed, so what does he do? He pants harder, making his body work harder and get even hotter.
What can happen if he’s not rescued?
His heart begins to race into overload. His blood loses too much carbon dioxide and his muscles begin to spasm. Eventually, your pal will die from circulatory collapse.
Leaving water in the car or cracking the windows doesn’t really help your pets or your child. A study published in the journal Pediatrics found the difference in the temperature increase between a car with cracked windows and one with closed windows was three-tenths of one degree. Not much of a difference, is it? Not when a life is on the line.
That same study found that on days when the outside temperature is 72 degrees, the temperature inside a shut car can rise to 97 degrees in the first half-hour and 117 degrees within an hour. Imagine what it’s like when the temperature is 100, as it was Friday.
We know your dog loves to ride to the store with you. We know that once in a store or restaurant, your child can be a nuisance. But locking either one in a shut car isn’t a solution — it’s a death sentence.
So please, this summer, do not leave your children or pets locked inside the car.
Already this year, at least 10 small children have died after being left inside a hot vehicle, according to San Francisco State University.
Last year, at least 29 children left in hot vehicles died from hyperthermia.
If you do leave your child in a car, he or she will first suffer the discomfort heat stress. Next, the child will become sick from heat exhaustion, with weakness, dizziness and fainting.
If left in the vehicle too long, your child will succumb to heat stroke. The nervous system fails and the child becomes delirious, suffers from convulsions and eventually falls into a coma. Death can result.
And what about dogs left in the car?
As everyone knows, dogs don’t sweat — they pant. Blood traveling through the dog’s body captures the heat and carries it with small amounts of water to its mouth, where the heat and water are released as vapor from the panting mouth. It’s a great system — unless your dog is trapped in a tiny, hot space.
Then, the hot, muggy air panted out by the dog becomes trapped in the car until the atmosphere can’t accept any more vapor from the dog’s mouth, and the heat stays inside the dog.
By now, you’re dog is starting to get stressed, so what does he do? He pants harder, making his body work harder and get even hotter.
What can happen if he’s not rescued?
His heart begins to race into overload. His blood loses too much carbon dioxide and his muscles begin to spasm. Eventually, your pal will die from circulatory collapse.
Leaving water in the car or cracking the windows doesn’t really help your pets or your child. A study published in the journal Pediatrics found the difference in the temperature increase between a car with cracked windows and one with closed windows was three-tenths of one degree. Not much of a difference, is it? Not when a life is on the line.
That same study found that on days when the outside temperature is 72 degrees, the temperature inside a shut car can rise to 97 degrees in the first half-hour and 117 degrees within an hour. Imagine what it’s like when the temperature is 100, as it was Friday.
We know your dog loves to ride to the store with you. We know that once in a store or restaurant, your child can be a nuisance. But locking either one in a shut car isn’t a solution — it’s a death sentence.
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