WASHINGTON -- A child left in a family car for just moments can suffocate on a hot day or knock it into gear with tragic results, says a group seeking to make it illegal in every state to leave children unattended in vehicles.
"I know how deadly one minute can be," said Michele Struttmann of Missouri, co-founder of the advocacy group Kids 'n Cars.Struttmann's 2-year-old son, Harrison, was killed and she was critically injured two years ago when toddlers ages 2 and 3 were left alone in a running van as their parents stood outside talking. One child shifted the van into gear and ran down Struttmann and her son as they sat on a park bench.
"What does it take for people to wake up and understand that leaving kids alone in a car is a tragedy waiting to happen?" she asked.
Kids 'n Cars started a media campaign Tuesday to warn parents not to leave a child unsupervised in or around a vehicle. The group is sending public service announcements to 2,000 radio stations and 10,000 newspapers and distributing fliers urging parents not to leave a child in a car, "Not Even for a Minute."
The group said 82 children have suffered heat-related deaths in the past 10 years in the passenger compartment, and at least 20 have died from getting locked in the trunk, including five girls in Utah in 1998.
Nine children have died already this year, and "it isn't even officially summer," said Janette Fennell, another co-founder.
Among them were 5-month-old twin sisters from Missouri left in a parked car while their grandmother helped a friend with a garage sale, a 4-year-old Maine boy hit in his own driveway by a vehicle with an even younger child at the wheel, and a 9-month-old Virginia boy whose father left him in the back seat, forgetting to drop him off at day care.
In February, 6-year-old Jake Robel of Missouri was dragged to his death when a man stole his mother's car. The boy had been left in his mother's sport-utility vehicle while she ran into a store.
"Cars are not baby sitters," Fennell said.
Fennell and her husband were abducted at gunpoint in 1995 and stuffed in the trunk of their car. She praised Ford Motor Co. for fitting cars with internal trunk releases allowing a child -- and an adult -- to escape. She urged other automobile manufacturers to follow suit, noting that some are installing entertainment centers but, so far, not safety releases.
Researcher Anara Guard said most of the victims she studied were toddlers, ages 2 and 3, and half of the deaths involved pairs of children, usually siblings. She said in one-fourth of the cases, children climbed into the cars on their own, while the rest were left by adults, knowingly or unknowingly. Twenty percent were in the care of day-care providers or baby sitters.
Guard noted that some states have laws against leaving pets unattended inside hot cars but not children. Only 11 states have laws that make leaving a child alone in a car a crime, and they vary widely.
"The animal welfare activists have done a very good job," Guard said. "Sadly, the same cannot be said of most of the major child health and child welfare organizations."
On the Net: www.kidsncars.org