People have been reminded of the dangers of leaving children in hot cars as temperatures continue to soar.
It comes after a Queensland mother was charged with murder when her two young children died after being left in a hot car on Saturday.
AA roadservice national manager John Healy said while similar cases are rare in New Zealand, “unfortunately, our major concern is that it still goes on”.
“Either subconsciously or consciously, people leave their children in their cars thinking that’s OK for a short time or whatever, but it’s not OK in any time at all,” he told TVNZ1’s Breakfast this morning.
“The risk is just too high. People get distracted, the kids could play within the car, they could lock themselves in - all that sort of stuff. It’s just not worth the risk, particularly now with temperatures rising a lot higher.”
Even with the windows rolled down a few inches, Mr Healy said, “within four minutes it would be over 40 degrees inside the vehicle, and for a child that’s traumatic”.
“An adult might be able to handle it, maybe. For children, though, it’s very traumatic and they get stressed and the temperature goes up even further in the body and that can be hard.
"They don’t have the ability to cool themselves - they can’t fan themselves, they can’t put the window down ... They look for their parent, their parent’s not to be seen, so it just builds that whole tension and stress in the child.”
Mr Healy said that bystanders who walk past a child in a hot car should check on their condition, observing them for several minutes, before seeing if they can locate their parent nearby.
He added that bystanders should also have a broadcast sent out if possible to advise people.
“If none of that works – and you have to be very quick with it – call the AA. We’ll be there as soon as we can. If it’s longer than 15 minutes, we’ll call the emergency services and get them to come.”
Mr Healy said bystanders should “solicit some help” if a child appears to be in distress.
“If you’ve got to make a judgement call – if that child is really, really stressed, sweating, all that sort of thing – then there will be someone around that may have something to enter the car, but solicit some help or if you can get in yourself, fine, but call [the AA].
"We might just have a patrol just around the corner, so it’s worthwhile giving us a call first to see if we can be there, or emergency services can be there."
He added that pets should also not be left in hot cars.
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