chennai excessive heat may have killed threeyearold asmathullah left sleeping in the back seat of a car by his parents say forensic experts and doctors in the city they say such incidents are common in the west particularly the us where temperatures are not often as high as it is in tropical chennaiit does not have to be hot outside to kill a child trapped in a car if it is hot it can worsen the situation says dr r selvakumar professor of forensic medicine madras medical college children particularly infants are extremely vulnerable to heat as their heat regulating systems are not well developed as in adultsthe couple from pallavaram on the outskirts of chennai forgot about the child when they went to attend a funeral on sunday and left him behind in the car they realised their mistake after three hours but it was too late by then though the child was rushed to a hospital he couldnt be savedon a sunny day the temperature inside the parked car rises rapidly and quickly as sunlight hits the windshield it enters the car and heats up the interior the dashboard and seats radiate more heat and the air inside gets warmer than the air outside heat moves from hotter bodies to colder ones and the bigger the difference the faster the heat would move the hotter the inside temperature more heat would be transferred the greatest increase in temperature happens in the first ten minutes studies have shown that there can be up to 55 rise in temperature in the first five minutes and up to 90 rise in temperature in the 15 minutes even if the car windows are partially open if the windows are closed the temperature inside soars cars with darker colours and harder surfaces become hot fasteron sunday the temperature outside was above 40 degrees celsius and temperature inside the car would have been a few degrees more the body temperature for the child trapped would have risen with the extensive heat the normal body temperature is about 987 degrees fahrenheit and it goes up to 105 degree f in very high temperature when the body temperature goes up the body gets exhausted and dehydrated the heart rate increases rapidly it can lead to liver failure and brain swelling even if they are brought to the hospital unconsciously it may be difficult to save them many die of multiorgan failure says dr bala ramachandran who heads the intensive care department kanchi kamakoti childs trust hospitalthe forensic experts who did the postmortem on asmathullah did not conclude on the cause of death they said they would wait for the pathology reports before they establish the cause of death samples of his body organs including stomach lungs liver and brain were sent for teststhe incident is not very common in india like in countries like the united states where doctors are increasingly concerned about children or pets trapped in hot cars a study by jan null professor