Your family car can be a lethal weapon if you have children

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By Navideh Forghani nforghani@nbcaugusta.com

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a car sitting in the summer sun can climb from 78 degrees to 100 degrees in just three minutes.

"In 10 to 15 minutes, the inside of the car will be to hot for a child," said Rene Hopkins, Safe Kids at MCGHealth Children’s Medical Center.

In those minutes, the results can be deadly. Hopkins spends her days educating parents on how to protect their kids.

"Children's body temperature rises three to five times faster than that of an adult and a lot of kids are dead before medical attention ever reaches them," said Hopkins.

In 2007, 35 children in the U.S. died of heat-related deaths in a car. Two of those were in Georgia, three in South Carolina. Hopkins say parents just don't realize how hot it can get in a car.

"The temperature inside the car is 141 degrees and as you can see, it's hot enough to bake cookies and it's literally an oven to bake," said Hopkins.

Hopkins put some chocolate chip cookies in her car around 10 a.m., the temperature outside was about 76 degrees, but the temperature in the car was 86. By 2:15 p.m. the temperature inside the car reached 144 degrees and that was hot enough to bake cookies.

Hopkins says when a child's body temperature reaches about 104, the child will get dizzy, disoriented, feel sluggish, and have a rapid heart beat. If the body temperature reaches 107, the results could be deadly.

Hopkins says it's not just the hot days you have to worry about. Temperatures can reach dangerous levels for children even on mild days when temperatures are as low as 80 degrees.

Experts say the best thing to do is take a teddy bear, move it to the front, that way you can remember you still have a child in the back seat.

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