By NATALIE GALLENTI-BREKALO
MELTON Police Inspector Stephen Mutton has sent out a strong message to parents that it is never right to leave children locked in cars.
The message comes in the wake of Ambulance Victoria statistics which reveal many parents across the state are ignoring the dangers of leaving children unattended in cars.
Although summer is over, Insp Mutton warns people not to be complacent.
“We’re finding it is happening around shopping centres quite a bit,” he told Star.
“The car can heat up within minutes and more people than ever are ringing triple zero.”
Between September 2013 and January 2014 paramedics were called out to 23 incidents of people locked in cars across the municipality.
Melton recorded the most reports with six, while Melton West recorded five and Caroline Springs followed closely with four.
Across Victoria there were a total of 620 cases of people locked in cars – of those, 99 people needed treatment by paramedics, with 24 taken to hospital.
Almost two-thirds of the 620 triple zero calls reporting someone locked in a car involved a child aged under 13.
Ambulance Victoria Group Manager Brett Drummond said it did not have to be a scorching hot day for a car to quickly heat up.
“Tests by Ambulance Victoria found that even on a 29-degree day the inside of a car can reach 44 degrees within 10 minutes and hit 60 degrees within 20 minutes,” Mr Drummond said.
He said accidents where keys were locked in the car with a child were common, while other cases were deliberate acts.
“Some people think they can just duck into the shop and leave their child but there’s a risk they will be delayed and it’s a risk that’s not worth taking.”
