Forgetting a child in the backseat of a vehicle can seem unfathomable to any parent — but experts continue to warn this tragedy can happen to anyone.
The death of a 2-year-old in Hallandale Beach on July 5 marks the fourth death in the state and 10th in the country this year. A young child in Plantation and a 3-year-old boy in Riverview also died after being left in hot cars in the prior two weeks.
Amber Rollins, the executive director of Kids and Car Safety, said the danger of leaving a child in the car is "one of the most difficult dangers for a parent to comprehend and relate to."
But it takes a perfect storm of circumstances to lead to the tragedy of a loving and nurturing parent to forget their child, she said.
An important step to preventing these disasters, Rollins said, is for parents to change their mindset in a way to prevent that from happening.
"Being someone who says 'this will never happen to me' opens up the possibility that this is going to happen to you," Rollins said. "And that's the most dangerous thing that a parent can do for their child."
Rollins admits she had the same mindset before a close call over a decade ago with her own son — and it came 12 years into her career with Kids and Car Safety.
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Her then 3-month-old son had just started daycare, and her older daughter had a sleepover the night before. Rollins was driving her daughter's friend home.
Her usual routine before her son was born was to go back home after dropping her off.
But that day, instead of turning left to take her son to daycare like she intended, Rollins turned right to head back home to work. Then, her son made a sound in his sleep.
"If I was anybody but myself, I probably would have just kind of laughed it off," Rollins said. "But I knew exactly in that moment, because of what I know, that I had lost awareness of him in the backseat and it very well could have been me. And I was hysterical."
If a lot of parents are honest with themselves, she said, "they will know that this can happen to them." They might have had a time when they lost awareness of their child, but seeing a diaper bag or their child making a sound can be the one factor that stops a tragedy from happening, Rollins said.
Why the unfathomable is possible
According to Rollins, there are several factors that contribute to caregivers forgetting children in cars: sleep deprivation, a change in routine, or functioning in "autopilot mode."
The science behind it lies in the brain's two different memory systems, she said.
There is prospective memory, or your intention to do something in the future. The other is basal ganglia, which controls habit memory and usually kicks in when you drive or during routine activities.
These memory systems don't work at the same time, she said. Instead, they're in constant competition.
Habit memory can take over prospective memory when someone is sleep deprived or stressed, Rollins said — but it doesn't account for a change in routine. So if an overwhelmed parent intends to drop their child off at daycare before work, she said, habit memory can kick in.
"That is how a truly responsible, loving parent can lose awareness of that baby in the backseat," she said.
A vehicle's internal temperature can rise 20 degrees in the first 10 minutes of being turned off, said Patti Liedy, the chair of the National Safety Council's Florida Vehicular Heatstroke Task Force. A vehicle's temperature can rise as much as 50 degrees higher than the external temperature, she added.
Children's body temperature can heat up three to five times faster than adult bodies, Liedy said. These deaths can happen when it's as low as 60 degrees outside, she added.
If you ever see a child alone in a car, Liedy said to call 911 immediately.
"The bystander can be the difference between why a child is rescued versus the child is remembered," she said.
Preventing a tragedy
The best way to avoid making such a mistake is through multiple layers of safeguards, Rollins said. There are a few prevention techniques that are "easy to do and could make all the world of a difference."
- Open up your car's back door to check the back seat. If you do this every trip, she said, it will become a habit after a couple of weeks.
- Keep a stuffed animal in the back seat. Then, every time you buckle up your child, bring the stuffed animal to the front seat and keep it on your lap as a physical reminder of your child in the back.
- Keep an item you need to continue your day in the backseat with your child to reinforce the habit of checking the backseat. For example, Rollins said, you can leave your laptop in the backseat if it's something you need at work.
- Be cautious whenever you have a change in routine.
- When you have multiple adults in the car, talk about who is getting what child from the car. That way a child doesn't accidentally get overlooked.
Kids and Car Safety is working to get a law passed in Florida to require childcare providers to call families if the child doesn't show up, Rollins said.
"Making contact with that parent is so important because most of the time when a child is unknowingly left, it was because they missed a daycare drop off," Rollins said. "We desperately need this to be passed in Florida."
According to No Heat Stroke, over half of children who died from being left in cars were forgotten by caregivers.
ALSO READ: As temperatures rise, a mother warns of dangers to children left in hot cars
Florida has had four out of the 10 hot car deaths nationwide this year, and it's ranked second in the country with the most deaths — 115 — between 1998 and 2025.
Something that often gets overlooked is the issue of children getting into the car by themselves and then being unable to get out, Rollins said. That accounts for about a quarter of hot car deaths.
The best ways to keep this from happening is childproofing doors of a residence with doorknob covers, or adding stick-on alarms to alert you if the door opens. It's also important to always lock your car, Rollins said, and keep the keys out of a child's reach.
Technology safeguards; are they effective?
There are three types of technology aimed at preventing children getting left behind in the backseat, Rollins said. The most basic, and least effective, she said, is the end-of-trip reminder to check the back seat some newer models have.
The reminder goes off every time you open up the back door — but not necessarily when you have a child in the backseat, Rollins said. When you get false alerts, she said, it might lead to fatigue alert and take away the effectiveness of it.
Another issue is it only goes off when you open up the back door on the trip, she said, so if you stop to get gas and don't open up the back door, the alert won't go off at the end of the trip. So far, Rollins said, there have been 15 children nationally who died in vehicles that had reminder alerts in them.
The next technological step up is ultrasonic sensors that detect motion in the back seat. It's available in select makes and models of Hyundai and Kia vehicles. While the ultrasonic sensor detects motion in the backseat, it can give false alerts for older children and adults.
The most effective technology, according to Rollins, is radar-based sensing which detects micro-movements and can differentiate between children, adults and pets. Those systems can alert the owners through a cell phone app of any movement inside the car, and even alert authorities with GPS coordinates.
But this type of technology is only available in a few makes and models of vehicles today, Rollins said, which is why it's important to have other safeguards in place like daycare calls and checking the backseat.
"We need (radar-based sensing to be) more widespread if this is really going to be effective," Rollins said. "Then, once it's required, it still takes decades before the vehicle fleet turns over and every vehicle has it."
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