The tragedy of heatstroke has struck again, this time in Sungai Petani, Kedah where a four-year-old was inadvertently left in a parked car and died as a result. The four-year-old girl’s father, a factory lorry driver had left to work in the morning, and only realised the oversight when he returned to his car at 6.20pm that evening, the New Straits Times reported.
The father drove the victim’s sibling to SMK Teluk Bayu before driving to work in Sungai Lalang, and had forgotten about the four-year-old in the rear seat as she was sleeping. The victim was supposed to be taken to her grandmother’s house in Kampung Bukit, Sungai Pasir, said Kuala Muda district police chief assistant commander Adzli Abu Shah in a statement.
Only as the father was about to head home for the evening, he discovered his daughter lying unconscious in the rear seat, and though he quickly called for help, she was later confirmed by paramedics to have died, the assistant commander said. The deceased was taken to the Sultanah Bahiyah Hospital for post-mortem.
Even as we all try to keep on top of our busy lives, safety needs to remain paramount, and it is crucial that with children in tow, the parent or guardian does their best to remember. One way to help keep the little ones at the top of mind is to place an essential item in the rear seats near the child so that the driver has to go around to retrieve it before leaving the vehicle.
A video uploaded in 2015 (above) by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) demonstrated just how dangerous heatstroke can be. Professional athlete, NFL player Tyrann Mathieu lasted just eight minutes before having to escape a car under direct sunlight, at which point its interior was measured at 48.9 degrees Celsius.
A child’s body heats up much more quickly than an adults – think of how small ice cubes melt more quickly than much larger ones – which means they are far more susceptible to the dangers of heatstroke compared to adults. Fifteen minutes in a heated car interior could cause life-threatening brain or kidney injuries, and when the child’s body temperature reaches 40 degrees Celsius, internal organs shut down, and at 41.6 degrees Celsius, death could occur.
Tragic as they are, these losses of life are avoidable. Always check for loved ones in your vehicle, before you lock up and leave for any duration.
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Need to change law and make this kind of negligence face harsher penalty
Isn’t manslaughter laws good enough?
The poor child will remain in the car, forever.
I’m so sad each time I read such news. :(
Can fully expect parents will start to blame the government for not enforcing them to be more aware of their children. It is never their responsibility to safeguard their children, just aa they are blaming the government for not enforcing child seat usage.
Berapa ramai budak harus mati baru korang nak cakap “aku tak sengaja. Dah ajal dia. Anak syurga.”… hah?
The poor kid will not mati katak if you nation already enforced child seat law months ago. Driver pays attention and put their kid into child seat buckle up. There’s no way the driver will forget about their kid sleeping at the back seat unless the drivers has dementia, if having dementia must ban from driving for life.
No correlation whether the child was strapped in or not.
Have you read about the previous case of a parent ‘forgotten’ to drop his child at the daycare and went straight to work, leaving the toddler to die in the car? Yeah, a lot of things can make parents forget about their children.
One of the first cars to have electronic sensor and reminder about child left inside car is Toyota’s new SUV known as Venza (based on Camry). Just launched in Japan and US. Unlikely coming here.
Paultan should find out about this feature, which is a lot better than the handling aspect of Proton (even Geely not interested otherwise it will ask Proton engineers to tune all Geely cars)
Malaysian will not pay for such feature.
Malaysian will pay extra for a feature to disable seatbelt reminder beeps.
I had Volvo V70 in 2000, the car already had a sensor that would detect movement in the car when the car is locked.
Whenever there is a movement, it will trigger hazard. That’s a good invention where nowadays they could improve by winding down side window straight away.
Can the vehicle alarm system can be fitted with a device to announce “Check Child Seat” or something similar when the driver lock the car?
Cases like this are happening too often that sometimes I wondered whether these parents did it intentionally.
Im not sure guys, but if you lock yourself in honda city and civic, there is an alarm coming. Can anyone confirm because, mine didnt give me alarm
Im not sure guys, but if you lock yourself in honda city and civic, there is alarm coming. Can anyone confirm because, mine did give me alarm
So sad to hear about this news.
Is there a way that for the car maker to create an alert mechanism for the driver to make known to him/her that someone is still in the car?
“Ini semua salah cuaca panas in Malaysia”.
‘terlupa’ can happen to anybody.