A simple, brilliant invention that could save children from being left in hot cars is available to anyone with a few minutes of free time and some common household items.
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The E-Z Baby Saver consists of thick rubber bands and brightly colored duct tape. You affix it to the interior of your car where it blocks you from exiting until you remove it, prompting you to remember to check the back seat.
The inventor is 12 years old.
“Lots of different things happened to help me come up with this idea,” said Andrew Pelham of suburban Nashville. “I read a newspaper article about a woman who accidentally left her child in the car and the child died. It made me want to come up with an idea to prevent this. That’s a sad way to die. I decided to see if I could come up with something.”
Justin Ross Harris, 33, the Marietta accused of killing his 22-month-old son by leaving him in a hot SUV, will spend at least the next month in the Cobb County jail. Autopsy results have not been released and Cobb County District Attorney Vic Reynolds has said the investigation is “far, far from over.”
Any parent, no matter how conscientious, can overlook his or her child in the car to disastrous results, some scientists and child advocates said in a report by the AJC’s Ariel Hart on Sunday. Last year, 26 deaths in the United States were caused this way.
The problem of child hyperthermia deaths in cars got bad in the 1990s, after car seats were shifted to the back seats following child deaths from protective airbags. Car seats for babies also no longer face forward, so the child isn’t visible. Plus, the advent of cellphones has brought more stressful distractions into the car. Read more about the scientific reasons that can explain this tragic phenomenon here.
Such cases were on Andrew’s mind when he came across the Rubber Band Contest for Young Inventors, hosted by The Akron Global Polymer Academy at The University of Akron.
“I thought of the inventions I could have made with the rubber bands,” said Andrew, who’s been tinkering since the age of about 4, when his grandmother bought him his first box of Legos. “I thought something that could save lives would be better than an automatic baseball thrower.”
His creation, launched when the math and science fan was a fifth grader (he’ll be in seventh grade this fall), earned him national runner-up honors in the Engineering and Science Division. He won a trophy and $500, which to buy two cool Nerf guns and a laptop, which he used to create a web site with photos and instructions.
“You’re basically making a string of rubber bands and covering it with a tube of duct tape,” the site says.
Following his invention’s success last year Andrew received a slew of emails and messages, including one from a Michigan emergency dispatcher who’d had to take a heartbreaking call involving an infant who’d been left in a hot car and did not survive. His blog counter registered visitors from around the world.
“If nothing else this raises awareness,” said Andrew’s dad, Shuler Pelham.
As one of four kids, Andrew can definitely see how frazzled parents could accidentally forget to check the back seat.
“It mainly happens when people are going to be doing something else and it gets the parents’ system out of the ordinary,” he said. He considered pursuing a patent for his E-Z Baby Saver, but decided he’d rather allow anyone to make one of their own for free: “Teaching people to make the E-Z Baby Saver is one way I can serve others.”
