Picture this scenario, Gray says: "Being sleep-deprived from staying up all night with a newborn, you're stressed from having argued with your spouse, don't have air conditioning and it's 102 degrees, and you hardly ever take your baby shopping, but the little one falls asleep in the car, and then you are arguing with your spouse by cell phone while parking — maybe you could walk away from the car by accident."

Fennell says a change in routine is often a factor, like having Dad instead of Mom dropping off the baby at day care. "In many of these cases, the parent goes to day care at the end of the day to pick up the child and they say the child was never dropped off. Then the parent goes back to the car and finds a dead baby in the car."

She offers tips to help parents jog their memory, such as keeping a teddy bear in the child's car seat when the child isn't in it; when the child is placed in the seat, put the teddy bear up front as a visual reminder that the child is still in the car. Or put your purse or briefcase in the back seat, so you'll be sure to open the back door of the car.

"Everybody thinks this could never happen to them," notes Fennell. "They're incredibly judgmental."

But we're all human, she says. The parents who have lost children to hyperthermia include a pediatrician and the CEO of a hospital.

"I try, as angry and upset as I feel," adds Janet Brooks, manager of the Child Advocacy Program at Primary Children's Medical Center, "to err on the side of generosity."

Last week, Primary's "Spot the Tot" task force, made up of health and safety educators from around the state, met to discuss the problem of parents who leave their children alone in cars. One of the participants, who is the mother of small children, noted that "I've never used drive-up windows so much in my life." She's aware, Brooks notes, "that you shouldn't leave a small child in a car even for a minute."

People think that if a child is in a "safety" seat, he's safe, says Fennell. But leaving a small child alone in a car is "just as risky as leaving them around a swimming pool or any body of water."

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E-mail: jarvik@desnews.com