While I was in Virginia a neighborhood infant there was left in the car all day. It was the last day of school, schedules were altered, routines were disrupted; the result was fatal.
Gene Weingarten of The Washington Post won the 2010 Pulitizer Prize for Feature Writing for a piece on this subject, Fatal Distraction. I encourage you to read his superlative report. An excerpt, giving the basics:
Death by hyperthermia is the official designation. When it happens to young children, the facts are often the same: An otherwise loving and attentive parent one day gets busy, or distracted, or upset, or confused by a change in his or her daily routine, and just… forgets a child is in the car. It happens that way somewhere in the United States 15 to 25 times a year, parceled out through the spring, summer and early fall. The season is almost upon us.
Two decades ago, this was relatively rare. But in the early 1990s, car-safety experts declared that passenger-side front airbags could kill children, and they recommended that child seats be moved to the back of the car; then, for even more safety for the very young, that the baby seats be pivoted to face the rear. If few foresaw the tragic consequence of the lessened visibility of the child . . . well, who can blame them? What kind of person forgets a baby?
Unfortunately, his 2009 numbers are already outdated. There were 49 hyperthermia deaths of childen in cars last year, and there have already been 16 this year. So unbelievably sad. We are still waiting to see whether they will file charges against the mother in my neighborhood – it looks likely.