She also brought along a heatstroke display that tracked the outside air temperature and the temperature inside the Safe Kids Grand Forks van.

“It’s designed to really show how the outside temperature and the temperature inside vehicles can be extremely different,” she said.

At around noon, the temperature on the display read 90.9 degrees for outside temperature and 128 degrees for the temperature inside of the van, highlighting a 30 degree difference.

“This (display) has been set up for about an hour,” Hanson said. “I would guess by early afternoon (the van) will be about 40 to 50 degrees hotter.”

Audin Rhodes/MDN The heatstroke display from Safe Kids Grand Forks highlights the deadly difference in temperature the inside of a vehicle can have. This display had only been set out for about an hour and the difference in vehicle temperature was expected to climb.

The temperature inside a vehicle will be about 19 degrees different from outside air temperature within 20 minutes. Within an hour, it’s usually somewhere between 30 to 50 degrees hotter inside a vehicle.

“Parents don’t often think about that – how even on a 65 or 70 degree day, the temperature inside a vehicle could get to be 120 or 130 degrees,” Hanson said.

Hanson stressed the dangers of this temperature difference for everyone and especially for children because children’s body temperatures overheat three to five times faster than adults. This is because children generate heat under stress more quickly and cannot thermoregulate like adults can.

“Let’s say your child has an ear infection and they’re running a temperature. You might take them to the ER when their temperature gets to 103 or 104 degrees because you’re concerned. When a child’s temperature, or anybody’s, reaches 107, that’s when you see brain death,” Hanson said.

“So if you think of a child sitting in a car and they aren’t able to cool their body off by themselves, and it’s at 119 degrees, it wouldn’t take very long before they hit that brain death stage of 107 degrees,” said Hanson, who also stressed the average temperature of human bodies, 98.6, and the temperature where brain death occurs, 107, are not far apart.

“It’s a 9 degree difference and (children) can’t regulate so they’ll heat up very, very quickly. So it could be 10, 20, 30, 40 minutes,” she said about the time it could take for a child’s body to reach deadly temperatures.

An acronym parents, caregivers, and other adults can use to help prevent the unintentional death of children due to vehicular heatstroke is ACT: Avoid. Create reminders. Take action.

Avoid

Hanson said the number one way to avoid heatstroke in children is to never leave children alone in vehicles, whether the vehicles are running or not.

“There was a case a couple weeks ago in Arizona where a father was running errands, stopped at somebody’s house to drop something off, and the child was sleeping so left the car running with the child in it. A half hour to an hour later, the father went out to the car. Many newer cars have auto shut-offs after about 20 minutes of idling. The father didn’t realize the car had shut off and the child was dead in the vehicle in less than an hour,” Hanson said.

The other piece of the “avoid” step is to lock vehicles all the time when not in use and put the keys out of reach of children. This step should be followed by everyone, not just parents and caregivers of children.

According to Hanson, 25% of the time vehicular heatstroke in children occurs because children gained access to a vehicle.

“So our message is always lock your car and put the keys up and out of reach. Even if you live in an apartment complex and you don’t have children, or your kids are grown up but you have your car in your driveway, always lock it up because sometimes kids will toddle to another vehicle and get in and get stuck in,” she said.

Hanson described a case from many years ago in which an 11-year-old girl with Down syndrome wanted to go for a ride and got into her parents’ car. The parents had a child lock on the daughter’s side of the vehicle. The daughter was unable to open the door and she died.

“It can happen to children of all ages or even to vulnerable adults,” Hanson said.

Create reminders

Hanson also explained more than 54% of all child deaths caused by vehicular heatstroke happened because parents or caregivers, often tired, unintentionally forgot their children in vehicles.

“People come home. They’re gathering groceries. Somebody thought someone else took the sleeping baby out and put it in the crib. They think it’s napping, and later they’re like, ‘Where’s the baby?’ ‘Oh, my god, I thought you took it.’ Miscommunication,” Hanson said.

“The other time this happens is when there’s a change of routine,” Hanson said. “There was an incident that occurred in Grand Forks many years ago. Normally both kids went to daycare. On this day, the older child didn’t have daycare so the dad was staying home with the older child.”

The dad placed the baby in the car for mom to drop off at daycare, said Hanson, who went on to explain the mom took a different route to work that day because she didn’t need to drop off the older child at daycare, a visible change in the mom’s routine. When the mother went back at the end of the day to pick the baby up, the daycare said the baby was never dropped off, Hanson said. The baby had died in the van.

“What worries me the most is parents who say, ‘Oh, my gosh, I’m a good parent. I would never do that.’ Because if you think that you’re so good that it would never happen, you’re likely not going to take the steps to remember,” Hanson said.

Hanson explained this tragedy has happened to people from all walks of life, such as judges, principals, doctors, nurses, teachers and dentists, all accomplished people who loved their children dearly and were good, protective parents.

“Again, over half the time, 54% of the time, it’s unintentional. They forgot. They were human and they forgot,” Hanson said.

“Put your shoe or a briefcase or your phone or something in the back seat that you would need to take when you get to where you’re going. Or put a stuffed animal in the car seat, then when you put the child in, you move the stuffed animal to the front seat so you have that visual reminder,” Hanson said.

Adults also can set alarms and calendar reminders on their phones or smart watches to check the car and make sure the child has been dropped off. People should always open the back door and check the back seat before leaving a vehicle, creating a “look before you leave” routine.

Parents and caregivers may want to set up a plan with their childcare provider to have them call if the child does not show up.

Take action

“If you see a vehicle with a child in it and you can’t readily identify the adult or a caregiver, you should call 911 because your emergency personnel are going to come and they know how to break and enter into a vehicle without injuring the people inside,” Hanson said. “They also know how to give medical care so they can get that child out of that dangerous environment.”

Hanson said calling 911, or breaking a vehicle’s window if unable to contact emergency personnel, is not about getting anyone in trouble.

“It is about potentially saving the life of that child,” she said. “If (adults) left that child and you felt it was in danger, you need to take action and your Good Samaritan law will protect you if you do something with the intention of being helpful to somebody.”

Hanson said unlike in many states, there are no laws in North Dakota stating it’s illegal to leave a child alone in a vehicle. This means if emergency personnel and officers are called to a scene, it doesn’t necessarily mean the parents or caregivers of the child are going to be cited. However, this would depend on the scenario and whether the authorities want to press charges for neglect.