In a busy world full of distractions and distracting devices, one product could turn out to be the difference between life and death. Sense A Life is the creation of two Florida fathers who hope to prevent children from being left behind in hot cars.
Fadi Shamma and Jim Friedman are neighbors who invented the device, according to Tampa’s Fox 13 News.
“We were tired of hearing all these sad stories and seeing the agony on parents’ faces and we decided that this is such a serious problem that could probably be solved with a simple solution,” Shamma told Fox 13.
That solution is a two-part system that uses an alert to remind a parent that a child is in the car. Sense A Life uses a sensor placed under a child’s car seat that communicates with another sensor on the driver’s door. A voice alert reminds the driver to get the child when the door is opened. If ignored for a certain amount of time, a second alert is sent to a linked smartphone.
Fox 13 reports that the men have applied for a patent and hope to market Sense A Life individually to car owners or to car companies or car seat manufacturers. The company’s website says that a Kickstarter is planned in April.
According to an NBCNews.com report in 2014, more than 36 children die in overheated cars in the United States every year. KidsandCars.org says that in well over 50 percent of deaths, the person responsible unknowingly left a child behind.
