US heatwave raises alarm over children dying in hot cars this summer

As a heatwave crashes over parts of the United States this week, one mother who lost her 9-month-old son after accidentally leaving him in a hot car is warning other parents to take precautions. 

Raelyn Balfour forgot her son, Bryce, was sitting in the back seat of her car when she walked into work on March 30, 2007. 

“I was one of those parents, years before this happened to me, who said that it has to be an irresponsible parent. There’s no way that could happen. But there absolutely is a way that can happen,” Balfour told Fox News Digital.

The now-53-year-old mom of five, including Bryce, served in the Army for nearly 30 years before she medically retired in 2018.

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Bryce Balfour died in a hot car at 9 months old on March 30, 2007. (Kids and Car Safety)

“There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about my son. His birthday just passed on June 18. He would have been 19 years old. And to think about the things that I will forever miss — his graduation, his wedding, his children, his happiness. It’s something that I have to live with every day.”

She recalled all the details of the day that were different from her normal routine: her husband did not have a car that week because he had lent his to his sister, so Balfour had to drop him off at work that morning.

The night before, they hadn’t slept well because Bryce was sick and they could not find his pacifier. Their daycare provider had recently changed phones, losing certain numbers. They recently changed out Bryce’s car seat, which was too big to fit in its usual spot directly behind Balfour, so she and her husband moved it behind the passenger seat instead.

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Bryce Balfour would have been 19 years old today. (Kids and Car Safety)

Their typically talkative toddler did not make any noise in the back seat of the car that morning because he was so tired, Balfour recalled. And after dropping off her husband at work while he did not have a car, Balfour headed straight to work instead of daycare because she had a routine of making one stop before work. During her drive, she got two phone calls — one from her nephew and another urgent call from work.

Balfour went in to work as usual and saw a missed call from her daycare provider around 2 p.m. She called her back, but it went to voicemail. Around 4 p.m. that day, the daycare provider called again and asked Balfour how her son was doing, knowing he had been sick that week and assuming Balfour had stayed home with her son that day.

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“I couldn’t understand what she was talking about because, quite honestly, I thought that she was saying [my husband] had picked up Bryce early, not realizing he didn’t have a vehicle,” Balfour said. “I could hear the panic in her voice, and she said, ‘No, Rae, you didn’t drop him off this morning.’ And the whole morning flashed through my mind.”

Raelyn Balfour was charged with second-degree murder and felony child abuse and neglect for leaving her son in a hot car in 2007, but a jury acquitted her of the charges. (Kids and Car Safety)

She immediately hung up the phone and ran to the parking lot. It had been a cold morning at 36 degrees, but the temperature had reached 66 that afternoon. The temperature inside her black car, she would later find out, reached 100 degrees on the chilly day.

“I pulled him out of the car. I was screaming. I was going crazy, and I was screaming for someone to call 911,” she recalled. “I immediately put him down on the ground and started CPR. And I can tell you that there’s a lot of parents who believe that this isn’t possible, and you have to be an irresponsible parent, but I can tell you that no one wants to know what it feels like to perform CPR on your own child.”

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Her son was pronounced dead at a hospital that day. 

Balfour would later be charged with second-degree murder and felony child abuse and neglect, but a jury acquitted her within 90 minutes, Balfour said.

Bryce Balfour died March 30, 2007, after being left in a hot car. (Kids and Car Safety)

“Then throughout the trial process, I would get very frustrated because …I don’t understand how I can manage $47 million in the US military with every penny accounted for, but I can’t remember my own child. Like, how is this possible?” she said.

Amber Rollins Reis, director of Kids and Car Safety, told Fox News Digital that the “overwhelming majority of hot car deaths happen when an otherwise loving, responsible parent loses awareness that the baby is in the back seat.” There are an average of 38 children who die in cars each year in the United States, she said.

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She added that parents who lose awareness of a child in the back seat showcase “a very typical function of the competing memory systems in our brains.” The hippocampus stores thought memories while the basal ganglia controls habit memory, and the two functions compete with each other, she said.

There are an average 38 hot-car deaths per year in the United States. (iStock)

“When you’re fatigued, stressed, you’ve got a lot going on, your habit memory or that basal ganglia tends to kick in more often and help you execute habits or routines that you’ve done many times before so that that hippocampus, or that conscious memory, isn’t having to stay engaged,” she explained. “So this is kind of a survival mechanism of the way that our brain functions. The problem with that habit memory, or that basal ganglia, is that when there’s a change in that normal routine … your basal ganglia can’t account for that.”

Parents who are sleep deprived or overwhelmed may be thrown off by changes in routine, thus being more susceptible to leaving children in cars on their way to work or other stops in their daily routines. 

About 55% of all hot car fatalities involve a parent who “lost awareness that the baby was in the back seat and did not have a reminder or did not realize until it was too late,” Rollins Reis said.

A mom buckles her infant son safely into a rear-facing car seat as they get ready to drive somewhere in their vehicle. (iStock)

She recommends parents put something in the back seat that they need to move on with their day, such as a phone or laptop — something that is needed for a typical work day. Balfour said that when she had her other children, she would take off one shoe and put it in the back of her car so she would always remember to check the back.

Balfour also recommends parents strap their children into their car seats with an object, such as a bright stuffed animal, and then take the stuffed animal up to a visible place in the front seat as a reminder that there is a child in the back. 

Developing habits like these help parents get into the routine of checking the back seats, Rollins said.

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Balfour has since made it her life’s mission to share her son’s story and help other parents remember their children in the back seat.

“No matter how hard it is, and it’s never easy, I’m keeping my promise to him,” Balfour said. “And that’s how I honor his memory. That’s how honor him, is to continue to be a voice and to spread the information.”