Reporter Spends 30 Minutes In A Hot Car To Prove How Unbearable It Is

Reporter spends 30 minutes in a hot car to prove how important it is to be hyper aware of our children during the hot months

Summer has started, and with it will no doubt come the yearly tragedies that involve young children and hot cars. One reporter decided to spend 30 minutes in a hot car to document her own adult reaction to what that kind of heat does to a person, and hopefully help raise awareness about how important it is to protect children during this time of year.

The yearly stories are terrible and almost seem impossible to stop. But a little education on the subject can help. Not that everyone doesn’t already know how dangerous it is – the issue usually is less one of ignorance, or even cruelty, but is instead about absentmindedness. And what parent out there can say they don’t have a brain freeze every once in while? Maybe not one so severe, with such horrific consequences, but there but for the grace of god go we.

Regardless, a little reminder of the danger is never a bad thing, and a reporter in Nebraska has given us a pretty good one.

Jenna Jaynes, an anchor with WOWT News in Omaha, performed a little experiment on herself to demonstrate just how dangerous the backseat of a car can get on a hot summer’s day. She locked herself in the backseat of her car on an 84 degree day, and set the timer for thirty minutes.

In 84 degree heat I sat in a hot car for 30 minutes to see what it might be like for a trapped child. By the end, it was…

Posted by Jenna Jaynes on Wednesday, June 8, 2016

From her Facebook post: “By the end, it was over 130 degrees and I was SOAKED with sweat. Two days later, I still haven’t fully recovered and now I don’t feel comfortable sitting in the back seat of cars.”

130 degrees. That’s crazy, and quite a way to demonstrate just how deadly it can get back there, especially for a toddler or a baby.

Summer can be a hectic time for many families, and despite your confidence that this can never happen to you, it definitely can. It doesn’t necessarily make you a monster, or even a bad parent. It just makes you human.

To attempt to help curb these tragedies, two dads from Tampa invented a device designed to prevent hot car deaths. According to a story from Fox13 News, “It’s called Sense-A-Life and it’s a two-part system that uses sensors to remind parents or caretakers to take their children out of the car. One sensor goes under the child in the seat and communicates with another one installed near the driver’s side door.” The system sends a voice alert to the front seat when the door opens, reminding the driver about the kid in the back, and even sends a message to your phone to follow up.

It’s a pretty good idea, and something like that probably makes sense even for the most conscientious parents among us. No one plans to forget their kids in the back of the car, but it happens. Better safe than sorry.

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