Police have issued a warning against leaving children unattended in cars following a record heatwave and two alleged incidents in NSW on the weekend.
A father has been charged after allegedly leaving his three-year-old son in a parked car in Yagoona on Saturday. According to 9 News, the boy became distressed and police had to break into the the car to free him while his father was inside the Hume Hotel.
“As soon as we saw him, we were like, ‘Oh my god, do we break the window, are we allowed to do that?’ So we just rang the police straight away,” witness Issa Khadem said.
“He was crying, he had wet himself in the car, poor thing.”
Officers also said they found a two-year-old boy home alone at the family address.
In a separate incident, a mother has been charged after allegedly leaving her 15-month-old daughter alone in a parked car on Sunday. According to news.com.au, police were called to Hurstville shopping centre to remove the girl, who had been left alone for about 30 minutes.
NSW Police have issued an important warning about the dangers of leaving children alone in hot cars:
* On a hot day the temperature inside a parked car can rise to 30-40 degrees above the outside temperature – if it’s a 30 degree day, the temperature inside a car can exceed 70 degrees Celsius.
* These high temperatures inside a closed vehicle can be reached within as few as 5 minutes. The temperature can peak within as few as 15 minutes.
* The temperature inside a closed vehicle rises when the airflow decreases, making breathing inside the vehicle very difficult.
* Having the window down slightly will only cause a small drop in temperature inside the car – there is no safe way to leave a child in an unattended vehicle.
* The temperature inside a closed vehicle will be slightly higher if the car is dark in colour and if the car has large amounts of glass.
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