Thursday May 19th, 2022
That is the least you should do when you see a child unattended in a vehicle. It is about saving lives and saving lives always comes first and foremost. What if that child were yours? Would you feel the same?
The following steps are just guidelines informing us what to do if we see a child or children unattended in a vehicle.
Call emergency services such as police or ambulance immediately (911 in the United States): Provide them with the exact location, license plate, and vehicle description. Once informed, stay with the vehicle until help arrives and assist if possible. In addition, you can check and see if the doors of the vehicle are locked or not.
Find the parent: At this time, you can try to flag down any passerby and see if they can assist to find the parent or whoever owns the vehicle. If the vehicle is parked at the mall, it may be logical that to use your cellphone to find the mall service number to broadcast a message and try to find the parent that way.
Check the status of the children: During the time you wait for the parent and/or the emergency services to arrive, you can also check to see the vital signs of the children. If you do notice any of the following signs, it may be critical to try and speed up the rescue. Also stay on the phone with the emergency dispatcher and describe the status of the children. Signs of heatstroke: fast breathing, disorientation, vomiting, collapse, lack of responsiveness.
Breaking the window to access the unattended children: At this point, you may choose to break the glass of the vehicle to save them. In most cases, children are found in the backseat of a vehicle, therefore, it is safer to break the driver side’s glass in order to unlock all doors of the vehicle. This will decrease the chances of flying glass debris which may cause some danger should you decide to break the rear passenger glass.
Will you get in trouble if you break the glass to save a live? In some states including California, the person who carries out such an act is protected from the liability. The following is a direct quote from California’s AB-2717 motor vehicles: unattended children liability law. In addition, in some states, this person is also protected under the Good Samaritan Law.
section 43.102 is added to the civil code, to read:
There shall not be any civil liability on the part of, and no cause of action shall accrue against, a person for property damage or trespass to a motor vehicle, if the damage was caused while the person was rescuing a child in accordance with subdivision (a) or (b) of Section 1799.101 of the Health and Safety Code. For purposes of this section, “child” means a child who is six years of age or younger.
After the rescue: What to do after you have broken the glass and rescued the children but the emergency services have not yet arrived? As we have covered in previous posting, we can try to move the children from the car seat to a cooler location (if possible), and remove any unwanted clothing. In addition, inform the emergency dispatcher should you have access to cold water, as running cold water all over the body may reduce the children’s body temperature faster than any other method. Remember to inform the emergency dispatcher you have moved the children to another location if it was done so.
Remember, even though it may not be our children that we are caring for, but it is all of our responsibility and integrity to help in any way we can to save a life. As the late Richard Carlson (1961-2006, American author, psychotherapist, and motivational speaker) once said “Making your life with absolute integrity and kindness your first priority”.
Text:
www.nhtsa.gov/child-safety/preventing-heatstroke-what-do-if-you-see-child-alone-car
leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB2717
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