This month, students will be returning to school in the tri-county area.  During this pandemic, your child’s safety is our number one priority. Please take a few moments to review back-to-school safety with your child.

Walking To School

If your child walks to school, make sure there are sidewalks along the way.  If you are not able to walk with your child, remember there is safety in numbers so have your child walk with siblings or other neighborhood children.  Being hit by a car is by far the greatest threat to any child walking to school.  Make sure your kids stay on the sidewalk and only cross at crosswalks.  Remember to remind your children to never, ever stop to talk to strangers on the way to and from school and, most importantly, never to get into any vehicle with a stranger.  These could potentially be life threatening situations.

Bicycle Safety

Children peddling to school on bicycles must wear bike helmets – it’s the law.  Helmets are the single most effective devices for cyclists, greatly reducing the risk of death or critical injury.  Your children should ride their bicycles on the right side of the road and obey stop signs and traffic signals. Continue reading →

The state of Florida has the second highest total number of heat related deaths of children being left unattended in a vehicle.  More than half of vehicular heatstroke cases from 1998 to 2019 were because an adult forgot about a child, according to NoHeatstroke.org.  Additionally, every year pets suffer and die when their guardians make the mistake of leaving them unattended in a parked vehicle to “run in for just a minute” at the local store.  The Lady Lake Police Department is committed to informing and educating parents and pet owners on the dangers of leaving children and pets unattended in a vehicle and taking precautions to help prevent these tragic situations.

Leaving a child or a pet in a hot car even for a short period of time can be dangerous, even if parked in a shade or with the windows cracked.  A vehicle’s glass transparency allows for the sun’s rays to heat up the inside essentially creating a vacuum of heat.  Within minutes a car that was just being cooled can experience a spike in temperature.  On a sunny day, when outside temperatures are 80 degrees outside, the inside temperature of a vehicle can rise to 99 degrees in 10 minutes and soar up to 114 degrees in 30 minutes.  At 90 degrees outside, the inside temperature of a vehicle can rise to 109 degrees in 10 minutes and soar up to 124 degrees in 30 minutes.

A child’s body temperature can rise up to five times faster than an adult’s.  When a core body temperature of 107 degrees Fahrenheit is reached, internal organs begin to shut down leading to death.  Continue reading →

It only takes a minute.  You look away, you may not hear the splash and your child is nowhere in sight.  Drowning – the harsh reality of losing a child in less than one minute.  Drowning is swift and silent.

According to the National Drowning Prevention Alliance (NDPA), there are approximately 4000 drowning deaths a year in the United States.  The Lady Lake Police Department is committed to educating parents and caregivers about taking precautions to help end these preventable tragedies.

Florida loses more children under age five to drowning than any other state.  Annually in Florida, enough children to fill three to four preschool classrooms drown and do not live to see their fifth birthday (Floridahealth.gov.)

Living in Central Florida, we are surrounded by water.  Although children may know how to swim, if left unsupervised, they can drown in less than two inches of water.  When participating in outdoor water activities, I encourage you to follow these safety-conscious behaviors: Continue reading →