With summer here and temperatures rising, Shelby County parents are concerned about the safety of their children after a 1-year-old died recently from being left in a hot transport vehicle outside a North Memphis day care facility. 

The unidentified child was taken to a hospital, where he died, after being left in the vehicle for more than six hours during 80- to 90-degree weather on May 19. No charges were filed but the the day care center, Education is the Key Childcare, has since shut down.

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The situation illustrates a yearly problem here and nationwide as children are inexplicably forgotten and left in hot vehicles, and officials are doing what they can to remind of the dangers.

Nicole Tomlin, who has a 3-year-old daughter, was furious when she heard about the recent incident at Education is the Key Children’s Center, 975 Thomas St.

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“How do you just forget about a child in a car? Why would you leave a kid in a hot car in the first place? People can be so negligent,” the Bartlett resident said. “To say I was furious was an understatement.”

Education is the Key voluntarily surrendered its license to the Tennessee Department of Human Services May 23 and permanently shuttered its doors.

But that does not alleviate Tomlin’s fears that the same could happen to her child. She said she does not bring her child to any day care because of instances like these and because she does not trust someone she does not know to care for her child. 

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Asked if she had any concerns about the potential for her child to suffer the same fate from a babysitter, she said: “I definitely have worries about anyone not close to us doing this. It actually terrifies me.”

The child who died in front of the North Memphis day care was one of at least eight children in Shelby County who have died from vehicular heatstroke since 1998. 

Before this year’s incident, the last time a child died of vehicular heatstroke in Shelby County was in 2006, when 15-month-old Hunter Hicks was left in a vehicle and died, according to information from NoHeatStroke.org. 

Heatstroke is one of the leading causes of non-crash-related fatalities among children, with more than 900 children dying from vehicular heatstroke throughout the United States since 1998. Of those, about 31 were in Tennessee.

In 2022 so far, three children across the U.S. have died from heatstroke as a result of being left in a hot vehicle.

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Last year, 23 children died. But 2018 and 2019 saw record numbers of hot car deaths, with 53 deaths each year. 

Once a child is left in a vehicle, it only takes minutes for them to die from vehicular heatstroke. Once the child’s core temperature reaches 104 degrees, he or she begins to have a heatstroke, and by 107 degrees, the child’s organs can give out and cause death. 

In just 10 minutes, a car can heat up by about 20 degrees. According to researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine, temperatures in a car can increase by 40 degrees Fahrenheit within an hour, regardless of ambient temperature. 

But internal temperatures in cars can slowly increase more than 43 degrees after an hour, said Jan Null, a Certified Consulting Meteorologist and professor at San Jose State University who began researching vehicular heatstrokes in children in 2001 and presented his findings on NoHeatStroke.org.

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On Thursday, May 19, when the North Memphis incident occurred, outside temperatures soared to 91 degrees. The child was left in the car for hours, and the vehicle would have reached lethal temperatures within 10 minutes.

“On that 90-degree day, after 10 minutes, it was already going to be 109 degrees (in the vehicle),” Null said. “That’s a lethal temperature. After (several hours), it would have been upwards of 140. … That’s beyond Death Valley temperatures.”

Although most vehicular deaths occur June through August, the hottest months of the year, parents and caregivers should be careful even when ambient temperatures are mild. Even in the high-60s, a vehicle’s internal temperature can rise to nearly 110, proving deadly to children whose body temperatures warm at a rate three to five times faster than an adult’s.

Cracking windows will only decrease temperatures by 2 or 3 degrees, Null said. 

“So instead of 140, it’s 137,” Null said. “It’s a negligible change.”

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the top reason for children being left in vehicles is caregivers forgetting them (52.6%).

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“Unfortunately, even great parents can forget a child in the back seat,” NHTSA wrote. “Other risk factors include caregivers who aren’t used to driving kids or whose routine suddenly changes.”

Most often, children are left in vehicles at home by their mother or father, according to Null’s research. 

Behind that, causes include children gaining access into vehicles (25.8%) and people knowingly leaving children in vehicles (20.1%).

Carmen Jackson, a deaf mother of an 8-year-old and a 2-year-old, said she does not understand how parents can forget their own children, no matter how preoccupied one is or how quiet a child is.

“(An) argument I’ve seen made is that a child could be asleep, not make a peep, and that could contribute to forgetting they’re in the car with them,” the East Memphis resident said. “As a deaf parent, I don’t find that as an acceptable excuse. 

“There was a period of time I worked overnight, 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. This was 3 to 4 days a week. I maintained every day-to-day errand, chore and meal while I worked this job. I had to take Lydia, (my oldest), to school and pick her up from school. I was running on a maximum of five hours of sleep per day at this time. As exhausted as I was, I’d never forgotten she was with me.”

Immediately following the incident in North Memphis, the Memphis Police Department posted a tweet reminding parents to keep an eye out for children in cars and offering up tips to avoid this happening to their child. 

MPD advised that parents never leave a child or pet alone in a car; create reminders by leaving purses, briefcases or cellphones by the child in the back seat; and taking action by calling 911 if they see a child in a hot car. 

MPD did not respond to a request for additional comment.

The Shelby County Sheriff’s Office also recently posted on Twitter reminding parents about the dangers of leaving children in hot vehicles. 

“We run these reminders over the summer months using our various social media accounts,” a Shelby County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson wrote in an email. “The deputies in our speaker’s bureau will also discuss child vehicle safety topics when they have the opportunity to talk with students and parents at events. It’s up to as many organizations who are willing to spread the word about the dangers of leaving anyone in a hot car, such as churches, hospitals, schools, businesses and the media.”

The National Safety Council also recommends locking vehicles when not in use so children cannot gain access and teaching them that cars are not play areas. 

Technology can also be a part of the solution, such as through rear seat reminders that have been installed on many GM vehicles and car seat technology that reminds drivers that a child is in the rear seat within two seconds of turning off the vehicle. 

Day care centers can also use systems like double checklists, meaning they check for children upon entering and leaving the vehicle, and technology like buzzers that employees must turn off by pressing a button in the back of the vehicle.

Null said parents should not be scared to bring their children to day care, but they must do their research. 

“That’s part of our society, having day care, and it’s an important part that allows people to work,” Null said. “But like anything else, it needs to be vetted. I would vet their licensing, their quality of care, all those common sense things that we would do with a child.”

Parents in Shelby County and Tennessee can check day care complaints and licensing information on the Department of Human Services’ website.