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Untimely death: Infant died from hot car

Published Tuesday, June 30, 2009 11:26 AM

By Michael Tannebaum
Summerville Journal Scene ®

On the morning of Feb. 5, 2004, Deona Ryan gently kissed her perfectly healthy 1-year-old daughter, Aslyn, on the head before going to work. Eight hours later, the infant girl was lying in an emergency room with a 106-degree temperature. She would lose her life two days later.

Sitting in her second floor office at Summerville Medical Center, Ryan, the hospital’s Director of Women’s Health, recalls that tragic 48 hours and how, five years later, it continues to inspire and shape her work.

It was a Thursday morning in Hawaii, and Ryan, who moved to Summerville about a year ago, watched as her husband, Timothy, read to Aslyn, who days before had celebrated her first birthday with a Hawaiian-style luau. Afterwards, Timothy left Aslyn with Shawna Akin – a woman in her mid-30s who baby-sat the young girl.

Around 2:30 p.m. Ryan received a call from her husband telling her to hurry to the emergency room. The hospital staff was waiting for Ryan when she arrived.

“All I remember was Aslyn’s blood sugar level was (extremely low) and she was having trouble breathing,” Ryan said. “We were told she had global brain damage, had suffered multiple strokes and that her brain could not support her respiratory system.”

Aslyn’s temperature was a scorching 106 degrees. Doctors stabilized her and placed her in the intensive care unit, but nothing could be done to save the child.

Two days later, a doctor told Deona and Timothy they were only prolonging Aslyn’s death so they made what Ryan describes as a “tremendously difficult decision” to take her off of life support.

Akin had said Aslyn appeared healthy until the pair became stuck in traffic for 45 minutes. However, the doctors said that didn’t explain Aslyn’s sudden onset of symptoms.

“A child’s temperature doesn’t reach 106 in that short a period of time without something occurring in between,” Ryan said. “There are no cases of children dying from riding in the back of an air conditioned car.”

Skeptical of Akin’s story, Ryan sent Aslyn’s autopsy to top forensic specialists throughout the country and around the world.

“They all concluded that Aslyn had been left in a car for about 50 minutes,” Ryan said. “As a mom, I was in shock.”

Akin, now a nurse’s aide in Wyoming, was never criminally charged because Hawaii didn’t have a law that prohibited leaving a child unattended in a vehicle.

Shortly after Aslyn’s death, Ryan, now a vice president with KidsandCars.org, and her husband started Hot Spot, an educational program designed to spread the message about the dangers of leaving a child unsupervised in a vehicle. They have collaborated on projects with organizations such as the National Institutes of Health and the National Weather Service to raise awareness.

Deona and Timothy’s efforts have led to laws being passed in Hawaii and Arizona that make it illegal to leave a child unattended in a vehicle, and a similar bill currently resides in the S.C. State House.

“We started the program because you get those emotions where you feel like you can crawl in a hole and lay there for a while but that wouldn’t do any good because children are dying all across the country from this very thing,” Ryan said.

Deona and Timothy take solace in helping prevent other children from suffering a similar fate and by remembering the abundance of joy their daughter brought them in such a short period of time.

“She was such a happy baby,” Ryan said. “She was just a pleasure, an absolute pleasure.”

Tips to keep children safe in and around a parked car:

Check the backseat before leaving the car.

Place an item you’ll need such as a purse in the backseat where the child is sitting.

Teach children not to play in and around cars.

Never leave a child unattended in a vehicle even with the window slightly open.

Keep keys and remote entry devices out of the reach of children. Lock the car and trunk, especially at home.

Walk around your parked vehicle to check for children before getting in the car and starting the engine.

Make sure children are accompanied by an adult when getting in and out of a vehicle.

Teach children that trunks are only used to transport cargo.

If your car has a trunk release, show your children where it is and how to use it.

If a child is missing, check the trunk immediately.

To read more about this, click here.

Contact Michael Tannebaum at 873-9424 ext. 215 or mtannebaum@journalscene.com
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