Oklahoma has the second most per capita deaths of children in hot cars in the nation, according to AAA Oklahoma.
Oklahoma child safety organizations remind parents and caregivers to look before you lock your doors to prevent these tragedies.
There is no safe temperature or time frame for a child to be left in a car alone.
“In the past 22 years, 29 deaths in Oklahoma have occurred from children left in hot cars," Rylie Mansuetti, AAA Oklahoma, said.
Child safety organizations say temperatures inside a parked car can rise 20 degrees in just 10 minutes, and that temperature will continue to rise as time goes by, creating a dangerous environment for unattended children or animals.
“Outside it's 84 degrees, and it is 108 degrees in the vehicle," Jenny Rollins, Safe Kids Tulsa, said.
For children the impacts of heat triple.
“Kids bodies do not have the ability to cool their temperature like adults do and so they're their body heats up three to five times faster than ours," Rollins said.
“Kids can get heatstroke in a car in temperatures at 52 degrees," Mansuetti said.
These tragedies can happen to responsible and well-meaning parents.
“In 2002, Tulsa Fire Department responded to almost 400 incidents where either a child or an animal was locked in a car," Andrew Little, Tulsa Fire Department, said. "In the summer months, we found that that number doubles.”
Rollins urges people to not take these warnings lightly.
"Don't hear these stories and think it'll never happen to me," Rollins said. "I don't need to create those reminders. I don't need to take the steps we all do. Life happens. Our memories are not flawless. We can forget we can slip our mind. And so what we want to do is provide layers of protection. To that, if one system fails another will help us prevent this from happening to our family and kids.”
50% of incidents occur from the child being unknowingly left in the vehicle.
25% occur from the child gaining access to the vehicle on their own.
“And then sometimes kids are intentionally left in vehicles," Rollins said. "A parent thinks I'm just gonna run the store for a couple minutes. They run into someone, something else happens. There's an emergency, or whatever, and they end up being in the car much longer than they think”
These incidents are 100% preventable.
“Create reminders," Rollins said. "Put something in your back seat, reminders on your phone. “
“Leave something that you can't go to work or complete your tasks without such as a cell phone." Little said. "You know, maybe one of your shoes, which sounds silly but you get out of your car and you have one shoe on, you know you're not going to leave the car.”
“If you ever see a child and a vehicle by themselves, take action," Rollins said. "Do not assume the parents coming right back. Do not assume it's just going to be a couple minutes. Call 911, stay there until you know that that child is safe. “