Colorado Springs – The story of a 3-year-old taken off life support four days after being choked by an electric car window points out the need to eliminate certain switches and other potentially fatal window designs in U.S. cars, a child safety advocate said.
Sarah Lynn Gaerlan was removed from life support after four days of brain inactivity and pronounced dead at Memorial Hospital on Wednesday night.
She apparently pressed down on a “rocker” switch while the family’s 1992 Mercury Sable was left running while parked in front of their house Saturday afternoon. The window rose so fast that her choking wasn’t noticed by her 8- and 10-year-old half brothers playing in the rear of the station wagon.
Rocker and toggle switches raise and lower windows when pressure is applied, even if accidentally. Lever switches, on the other hand, must be deliberately pulled in order to raise a window.
Sarah’s death comes five months after Congress passed new requirements for automakers regarding electric windows. Provisions in the 2005 transportation bill mandate lever switches, said Janette Fennell of Kids and Cars.
“There is still no date-certain when this will go into effect,” said Fennell, who launched a national campaign against rocker and toggle switches in 2003. “The automakers come back and say ladies with long fingernails in their focus groups don’t like lever switches.”
Fennell said lever switches and auto-reverse mechanisms – in which closing windows stop and retract on contact with hard objects – are standard in Europe and Japan. While the top U.S. automakers include these safety features in cars bound for Europe, they typically are not options in domestic models, she said.
The group estimates that power-accessory strangulation accounted for 3 percent of the 700 nontraffic auto fatalities involving children 15 and younger in the U.S. from 2000 to 2004.
Ford Motor Co. spokesman Dan Jarvis said he does not know when lever switches will become standard for all automakers.
“We made the decision to phase in pull-up window switches before it was required by law,” Jarvis said.
Fennell said she would also like to see automakers adopt auto-reverse window systems. Kids and Cars has endorsed a bill introduced to the Senate in November to mandate the auto-reverse feature and other safety mechanisms.
Colorado Springs authorities said Thursday they will not pursue criminal charges in connection with Sarah’s death.
“When the father left the car, there was an adult male friend and two boys in the car,” said police Detective Rebecca Arndt. “There was nothing negligent or criminal in his behavior.”
Arndt said the adult friend followed Wayne Gaerlan, 44, into the house on Cortina Drive moments after he went in on a quick errand.
The Gaerlan family has declined to comment. Family friend Berry Huffman said services in Sarah’s memory will be held this weekend.
The family has arranged for her liver to be donated to a needy child out of state, he said.
“There’s a lot of grieving right now,” said Huffman, who works with Gaerlan at a Christian book publisher. “It’s nice to know another child’s life will be extended, though Sarah had a tragic ending.”
