Health Ministry Launches Campaign to Prevent Forgetting Kids in Cars

YERUSHALAYIM

The Israeli Health Ministry has announced a 1 million shekel campaign to help prevent the tragic phenomenon of parents forgetting their children in cars, The Jerusalem Post reported on Wednesday.

Radio, social networks and digital communications will be utilized to raise awareness, and stickers will be distributed – in Hebrew and Arabic – to be affixed to the inside of drivers’ doors to remind them to check for small children before locking the vehicle.
Some 661 small children have been left in vehicles since 2008 and 30 have died; three since the beginning of this year.

The latest fatality was on Tuesday, when 2-year-old Neria Tayar, z”l, of Rechasim near Haifa was found dead in his family car after being left there inadvertently for five hours.

When Neria’s sister came in the afternoon to the nursery to take him home, she didn’t find him on the premises. She rushed to look for him, and found him in the family car, but it was too late.

A Magen Dovid Adom paramedic who was dispatched to the scene tried to revive the boy, but to no avail. “When we reached the scene, we found him lying next to the car unconscious, without a pulse, and very warm, with signs of heatstroke. We administered resuscitation but were forced to declare his death shortly thereafter,” he said.

Associate Director-General Prof. Itamar Grotto and deputy director-general for Information and International Affairs Einav Shimron-Greenboim said on Wednesday that “we must continue to act to prevent such cases. The Beterem-Israel Center for Child Safety and Health will participate in the National Program for Preventing Harm to Children.”

Orly Silbinger, director-general of Beterem, said that three deaths in less than four months were all terrible, preventable tragedies. “It can happen to any of us,” she said. Parents, especially during the warm months, must be very aware of the dangers.”

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