75 children resued from locked cars this year

Dubai: Dubai Police’s Search and Rescue Department responded to 151 cases of children locked inside vehicles, lifts and houses in the first nine months this year, a top official said.

Lt Colonel Abdullah Ali Beshwa, director of the Land Rescue Department in Dubai Police, said they rescued children just seconds before suffocations in some incident. Out of 151, 75 were trapped in the car, 73 locked in their houses and three in lifts.

“The main cause was negligence by their parents. Those children are a responsibility for the parents and they endanger their lives by leaving them in cars, lifts or houses, and and forgetting about them. Children can’t think like adults and save their lives in such situations,” Lt Col Beshwa said.

About 75 children were trapped in cars and their parents couldn’t open the doors and called for police help.

“The problem is when children discover that they are alone and can’t open the doors, they panic leading to suffocation and injury. In some incidents, we rescued the child few seconds before suffocation,” he added.

Dubai Police said that most incidents happened in shopping malls and public parks as parents don’t check their children behind them.

However, Lt Col Beshwa, said that some serious incidents also happened in villas where some children entered the car and locked themselves inside and couldn’t open it again.

“The problem is the father thinks the child with the mother and the mother believes her child with the father and both don’t look after him or her,” Lt Col Beshwa added.

One of the incidents involved newborn beign forgotten by his parents inside the car after they returned back from an event. After one hour they discovered that the baby was missing, and went to check the car and saved the boy.

Lt Col Beshwa said a sustained awareness campaign has helped to educate the public, especially the parents, of the danger of leaving children unattended in cars, lifts and houses.

“We are keen to reduce the number of trapped children. The law protects the child from any negligence. We usually refer the parents to police stations in cases of trapped children to sign a document promising not to keep the child unattended. This action has helped reduce the number of trapped children,” he said.

Dubai Police urged the public to alert police about any incidents of trapped children.

Lt Col Beshwa called on parents not to allow their children to use lifts alone and make sure the car is empty before locking it. “Parents should also be careful of run-over accidents involving children while parking cars inside their houses.”