Another tragedy of a baby forgotten in a car: MDA rushed a toddler to Rambam Hospital when he was in serious condition after being forgotten for a long time in a car in the city of Haifa.
The disaster occurred a little after 1:00 p.m. when a report was received at MDA’s 101 hotline in the Carmel region, about a baby who had been in a closed car for a long time on Kadoshi Hashoah Street in Haifa. MDA medics and paramedics gave him medical treatment and evacuated him to Rambam Hospital, A six-month-old baby is in serious condition.
MDA paramedic Yara Kazan and MDA emergency medic Ron Cohen said: “When we arrived at the scene, we saw the baby unconscious with signs of heat stroke. He was very hot to the touch. We gave him life-saving medical treatment that included cooling and administering medication and evacuated him in a mobile intensive care of MDA to the hospital when his condition is serious”.
At Magan David Adom we remind drivers transporting children, especially during the holidays and on those days when the temperatures soar, to do as much as possible to scan the vehicle at the end of the trip and to prevent the occurrence of children in the vehicle.
Every year there are dozens of cases where babies are left in the car. The temperature in the sealed vehicle is already telling after five minutes of being in the sun. A temperature of 30 degrees Celsius outside will result in a temperature inside the vehicle of 50 degrees or more, enough to “cook” the child in it. In such first minutes of terrible heat and suffocation, the toddler will suffer from shortness of breath, rapid breathing, until the diaphragm and respiratory muscles are tired and the opposite reaction of slowing down the breathing.
In the terrible heat inside the closed car, the toddler will suffer from significant excessive sweating which will cause a loss of salts essential to the body’s functioning, a loss of fluids and a drop in blood pressure, which will lead to a lack of oxygen supply to the organs where the brain is sensitive. The result is loss of consciousness, convulsions, cardiac arrhythmias, and even more severe brain damage. The dehydration processes also lead to irreversible damage to the kidney, sometimes even requiring dialysis or a kidney transplant.
The high temperature of the vehicle under the blazing sun and the rays penetrating through the windshield, when the baby is strapped to the seat, also lead to the development of burns on the baby’s skin within about 30 minutes. At this stage, the baby’s consciousness is confused and his heart rate is accelerated, but his body is unable to meet the oxygen demands. The intense pain from the heat and the burns adds to the baby’s distress, which is not resolved. The appearance of the burns also causes additional fluid loss, and with it an additional drop in blood pressure, a disruption in the salt balance and the risk of infections.
The intense heat also directly impairs brain function. Within 45 minutes, a process of considerable expansion may occur in the blood vessels in the brain until they rupture and severe bleeding occurs. With the disturbance in the salts, convulsions will appear which further reduce the arrival of oxygen to the brain.
The severe disruption of the body’s systems also leads to damage to one of the most sensitive organs in our body – the kidneys. The intense heat, the loss of salts and the decrease in blood volume lead to the failure of the kidneys, which undergo a process of “closing”. The kidney cells, one of the most sensitive cells in our body, will never go back and once they are damaged they will go through a process of terminal destruction.
The decrease in blood volume, the loss of fluids, the intense heat and the disruption of protein function also cause the formation of blood clots that block arteries in the body and even lead to a whole-body process of system collapse. The stage where the baby loses 15% of its body fluids always ends in death.
What to do if you found a baby locked in a car?
• Dial 101 and call the MDA. The faster the Magen David Adom team reaches the scene, the greater the toddler’s chances of survival.
• Try to unlock the vehicle. Try to call passers-by to break the car window and allow the temperature to be lowered and the vehicle to be ventilated.
• Take care of the shade. If you managed to get the baby or toddler out of the car, put him in a shady and safe place and remove his clothes. If you were unable to break into the vehicle through the glass away from the baby, try to cover the vehicle itself so that the temperature drops a little.
• If the baby is rescued, move him to a shaded place and wait for him to be evacuated by EMS. If he is unconscious, start resuscitation operations that include heart massages.
• Do not give an unconscious baby anything to drink, and do not pour liquids on him.