It's common sense, but it happens every summer in Arizona. Never leave infants, children or pets inside a parked vehicle. Did you know that a dog's body temperature is 104 degrees? That's six degrees warmer than a person's.
Infants cannot verbalize when they're feeling hot or cold like an adult can. It's up to you to keep them safe from our extremely high temperatures. Temperatures inside a vehicle can reach 50 degrees higher than the outside temperature. Cracking a window will not provide much relief to anyone left inside the vehicle.
When temperatures reach 100 degrees Fahrenheit, even with a window partially open, the temperature inside a car can reach 138 degrees in 5 minutes, and up to 150 degrees in 15 minutes. In these conditions, children can die very quickly. A rule to go by, the younger the child is, the faster the onset of heatstroke and dehydration.
- 75% of the temperature rise occurs within five-minutes of closing and leaving the car.
- 90% of the temperature rise occurs within 15-minutes.
- Dark colored cars reach slightly higher temperatures than light colored cars.
- The greater the amount of glass in the car (hatchbacks, etc…) the faster the rise in temperature.
- Larger cars heat up just as fast as smaller ones.
- Leaving your windows down even one inch causes only a slight temperature drop.
