As summer temperatures rise, the NRMA urges parents to stay vigilant to prevent children from being trapped in hot cars, a tragedy that can be easily avoided.
For more, NRMA Spokesperson Peter Khoury joins.
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We're now changing gears, and it's time for a difficult but really important morning this morning. Every year we see terrible outcomes when kids become trapped in hot cars and the reality is these accidents can so easily be avoided. It's been a hot summer too, temperatures soaring above 30 degrees across the majority of the country. The NRMA is issuing an urgent reminder for parents just to stay vigilant so for more people that spring in NRMA, it's Spokesman Peter Curry, Pete Cadaver here this morning. The majority of these cases are accidental so it's Mum and Dad putting the shopping bags in the back. They give the keys to the babies in the seat, close the doors and inadvertently, you know, the little one locks it. So they're accidental, so most of the cases we get called are accidental and when we get there we find that, you know, the parents are more stressed than the baby, but having said that, we do know that there are still cases where it's intentional and it is often the case that they'll just be ducking into the shops. Very dangerous. So dangerous, in fact, that the temperature, the information that you've got about how quickly the temperature rises is truly shocking. What is it? Yeah, look, on a day like today in Sydney, for example, where we are here today, that in Western Sydney we could see 40 degrees plus. Temperatures inside the vehicle will double within the space of a few minutes. So you're starting to get towards 80 degrees, that's cooking temperatures, clearly not the place for a baby or your pet and it doesn't take much time at all for those temperatures to hit that level and for some catastrophic outcomes to start to occur if that child isn't rescued from the vehicle. It's a matter of minutes. A child baby adult gets into heat distress, it's very hard to wind back from that. Now your crews will get there quickly, but it can take a little bit of time. Yeah, so we will put these, our guys put these calls to the top of the list, right? So even if you're not a member, if we get a call that there's a baby or a pet locked in a vehicle, that will go to the top of our list. But if you happen to see a child that's distressed or a pet, don't wait, break a window, obviously a window away from where the child is and rescue that child. Breaking window is not easy though. Yeah, it's hard. I mean, you think it's easy. One car's these days, it's not that hard to crack. Yeah, it is hard to crack and there's this misconception that you can't lock something in a car where you can, especially with the new car. So hold on to the keys, don't let the keys in the back of the hatch as you're putting the shopping bag in there. Yeah, we get there within minutes. Yeah, yeah. And that is one of the great things when you ring the NRMA. You're actually asked. The automated thing says to you, if there's a baby or a pet in the car, there's a particular number that you dial to be able to give that option. All right, Peter, thank you. Good advice. Thanks, Peter. (air whooshing) [BLANK_AUDIO]
