Senior Constable Steve Smith, Scott Turner from Redhotblue and Sergeant Nigel Dalton at todays launch of Heat Kills with one of our pull up banners to be used at local shopping centres.
Heat Kills
A project launched this morning at 10:00am in front of the Canelands Central Shopping Centre Police Beat office.
The project is not simply being applied to the Mackay Police District, but in fact the entire Queensland Police Central Region which extends from sections of the Sunshine Coast right up to and including Bowen. The project is targeted at infants or toddlers being left unattended in motor vehicles which are exposed to the heat.
In minutes.. this scenario in our tropical climate can lead to tragic results.
In the first ten minutes of our project launch today – a thermometer was placed in the back seat of our nearby police vehicle – exposed in the sun. The temperature inside the vehicle in this time rapidly increased by thirty degrees in just ten minutes of direct sun light exposure.
In Mackay, police have received almost 20 calls for assistance from members of the public in a one year period for instances of this nature. The majority of these calls are being received at our larger shopping centres. Hence the launch occurring at this location.
Research performed on the topic of infants or toddlers tragically dying in unattended motor vehicles exposed to the heat showed two things – yes, circumstances existed where people made a conscious decision to leave their child in a vehicle exposed to heat with an understanding of the risk involved – even if they did not foresee the disastrous outcome. Secondly, a major contributing factor in other instances was memory failure. It is this simple, if we are capable of forgetting any thing – we are capable of forgetting the presence of a child in a vehicle as well. Contributing factors which were identified in case studies to this memory failure occurring were high levels of stress, external pressures, lack of sleep, unexpected disruptions to the daily routine and also distractions. There was no demographical restriction on who these memory failures impacted – any one, of any race of any age can be affected.
The intention of this project is simply this – maintain or raise awareness of the dangers and through the presence of our banners posters and pamphlets (which fit under a magnet on a fridge very easily).. we hope to prevent any tragic incident from occurring.
We will be working at specific locations over the next few weeks – talking to members of the public and promoting our project. If you see us – take a pamphlet or poster. Even if you do not have children – do you know someone who does that could do with our pamphlet on their fridge or pin-board??
To be effective – our imagery had to be powerful and our message simple.
We are extremely grateful to the staff at Redhotblue (image designers for this project) for their amazing work and also Central Signs Mackay who created the end product – thank you for your contributions!
Many thanks to Queensland Health (Kylie – pictured above), Inspector Andy Graham from Mackay District Office and also Detective Sergeant Lisa Aitkins from the Mackay District Child Protection and Investigation Unit for attending and assisting with our launch.
