HOUSTON—When a 2-year-old boy died after being left inside a car in northwest Harris County Thursday, DeeDee Estis lived the nightmare all over again.
"I feel so bad for them. I wish nobody had to go through what we went through," she said.
August 13, 2008, her 3-year-old son, Christian, died in Webster. She’d left the boy with his grandmother, who was supposed to be taking him to day,care. Estis said her mom had never made that trip before.
The grandmother parked the car at work and went inside.
"He fell asleep in the back seat behind her actually and she forgot," Estis said.
Christian was in the car for 10 hours before he was found. He died of hyperthermia in a car where temperatures soared well above 120 degrees.
"This happens to some of the best parents I’ve ever met in my life," said Estis.
"It happens to lawyers. It’s happened to a principal. It’s happened to a rocket scientist. These parents are crushed that their child is gone."
So far this year, it has happened 37 times in the United States. On average, it happens more in Texas than anywhere else.
According to research from San Francisco State University, since 1998 at least 58 children have died in Texas from being left inside vehicles in hot weather.
Marketers are responding, although most of the safety products intended to remind parents about children and car seats can only be found online. The ChildMinder System arms a child seat with a sensor or a clip. The driver keeps a computer chip/fob on a key ring. An alarm sounds if you walk more than 15 feet from the car.
Lower-tech systems include a simple plastic tether—one end attached to the car seat and the other attached to your keys.
Estis is now a safety advocate working with KidsAndCars.org. She works to alert parents to the disturbing statistics, because of what she’s already lost and what she stands to lose. She now has a 9-month-old daughter named Bailey.
But still traumatized by her son’s death, she said she’s afraid to even put her daughter in a car seat.
"Just even being in the car, period. It’s just heart-wrenching for me to look back and see the car seat there in the first place. I just prefer to keep her out of the car altogether. So I just try to keep her at home," Estis said.
And from home, she fights in her son’s memory to educate parents and keep another child from meeting the same horrible fate.
"He doesn’t want any more children to join him like this," she said of her deceased son. "He actually doesn’t have a tombstone, because I don’t think his work is done."
"The only thing you can do as a parent when you lose a child, even somebody in your life close to you, is fight back and try to do the best you can to save others," Estis said. "To do everything that I can to save as many kids as I can."
For more information on hot-car deaths, as well as info on products, check out the following links:
