On average 38 children die in hot cars each year after being trapped or forgotten.
Even the most responsible parents can overlook a sleeping child and the end result can be devastating.
Today, there are so many distractions whether it’s your radio, phone or another driver. Most people don’t they could be distracted from their own children, but a Broken Arrow mom’s story will have you re-thinking that.
July 17th, 2011 changed Candace Bahr’s life forever.
She had just given birth to a bouncing baby boy completing her family of seven. Although exhausted and stressed, she headed out to a meeting with a friend. She placed 4-month-old Brennan in his car seat and headed down the road.
On her way to her meeting Candace took a phone call from her husband. She was still on the phone when she got out of the car, not even seeing her baby boy behind her in his seat. Deep in conversation, she went inside.
"He was having some things that he was really concerned about and we were just working through it together,” says Bahr.
An hour and a half later, she reached for the diaper bag and her baby.
"I kept asking where is Brennan, where is Brennan. I kept processing the whole thing of where could he be," she says.
Her heart started pounding and barely able to breath she began to panic.
"Just immediately running out to the car and hoping that my worst nightmare had not come true and it had,” says Bahr.
Her baby still inside his car seat was alive but struggling.
"He was red all over and very sweaty and had labored breathing but he was conscious,” she says.
Bahr called 911 and thankfully, paramedics were able to stabilize her son.
"Just going through the whole process of how could I do this? How is this possible? What was I thinking,” she says.
With triple digit temperatures on the way, Bahr wants other parents to hear her story so the same thing doesn’t happen to them.
"Don't believe the lie that it's never going to happen to me. You never know when that one day something crazy is going to happen,” says Safe Kids specialist, Jenny Rollins.
Safe Kids recommends doing several things so that you don’t forget your child.
- keep your purse or diaper bag in the back seat by your child’s car seat.
- stay off the phone when you are getting out of the car
- get in the habit of always opening your back door before you head inside to make sure your child isn’t still inside.
According to
www.kidsandcars.org, the highest number of deaths of children left in hot cars nationally is 49. That happened in 2010.
