New Yorker Cartoon and Tuscaloosa -al.com news- Hot Summer Day

Tuscaloosa firefighters to bake cookies in hot car to raise awareness of dangers of leaving kids in cars

Print

By Stephen Dethrage | sdethrage@al.com
Follow on Twitter
on July 01, 2014 at 4:58 PM

Tuscaloosa man charged with murder in son's death

• See a kid in a parked, locked car in Tennessee? Break the window! Get 'em out!
• Justin Ross Harris goes to court Thursday in death of 22-month-old son left in sweltering SUV
• Tuscaloosa firefighters to bake cookies in hot car to raise awareness of dangers of leaving kids in cars
• Wife of Justin Ross Harris also did internet searches on child vehicle deaths, warrants reveal
• Justin Ross Harris, father of toddler killed in hot car, calls from jail to speak at son's funeral

All Stories |

The Tuscaloosa Fire Department will try to bake cookies in a hot, parked car at a local shopping center Wednesday afternoon. (Tuscaloosa Fire. Department)

TUSCALOOSA, Alabama -- Just two weeks after a Tuscaloosa native's 22-month-old son died in a hot car in Marietta, Ga., the Tuscaloosa Fire Department is looking to raise awareness of the dangers that summer heat poses to children and animals left in parked cars – by baking cookies in a parked car.

Members of the fire department will set up at the Shops of Lake Tuscaloosa on Rice Mine Road Wednesday afternoon to allow the heat inside a parked car bake raw cookie dough into the finished product.


Fire Chief Alan Martin said the demonstration is meant to serve as a reminder to parents of the extreme risk hot cars pose to children.

"As outside temperatures rise, the risks of children dying from being left alone inside a hot vehicle also rises," Fire Chief Alan Martin said. "One child dies from heatstroke nearly every 10 days from being left in a hot vehicle, but what is most tragic is that the majority of these deaths could have been prevented."

The demonstration is planned just days after the funeral of Cooper Harris, the toddler son of Justin Ross Harris, a Tuscaloosa native charged with murder for leaving the child in a hot car while he worked two weeks ago.

According to a press release from the Fire Department, the body temperature of a child can rise up to five times faster than that of an adult, and temperatures as low as 57 degrees can lead to heatstroke, and on a day of temperatures higher than 80 degrees, standard fare for Alabama summers, conditions can become deadly in 10 minutes.

In addition to the demonstration, the fire department is reminding parents to never leave a child alone in a vehicle, to check the backseat every time the vehicle is parked, and to always lock their cars and place the keys out of reach, as many children who die in hot cars climb into them on their own.
The department also urged people to call emergency services immediately if they see a child left alone in a hot car.