New regulation too late for boy trapped in trunk

Keith Paul

Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2000 | 10:23 a.m.

A 3-year-old boy who wandered out of his Las Vegas house and was found hours later in the trunk of the family car died over the weekend -- days after a new federal regulation was put in place requiring release levers inside trunks.

An autopsy will be performed today to determine what killed Kenneth Smith, who died Sunday about 9:50 a.m. in University Medical Center, said Ron Flud, Clark County coroner.

Metro Police's neglect and abuse detectives are investigating the boy's death but have found no indication of any criminal wrongdoing, Lt. Tom Monahan said.

About 2 p.m. Thursday the boy's mother called police, saying her son was missing from the home on Demetrius Avenue. The mother told officers she had taken a nap about 9:30 a.m. and when she woke up about noon, her son was missing, said Officer Tirso Dominguez, a department spokesman.

She searched for her missing child for about two hours and then called police, he said.

Officers found Kenneth in the trunk of the car at 2:48 p.m. and he was taken to the hospital.

The investigation into criminal wrongdoing is waiting on the cause of death, Monahan said.

"We're looking into it, which is standard procedure in this type of case," he said.

A new federal regulation was announced Oct. 17 -- two days before Kenneth apparently locked himself in the trunk -- to prevent such deaths.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater announced that all new passengers cars starting Sept. 1, 2001, must have a release or other automatic system inside the trunk to allow for escape. A National Highway Traffic Safety Administration panel was formed in November 1998 after a summer where 11 children died in trunks.

"This proposal will give children and others a chance to get out of the trunk alive," Slater said in a release. "There have been too many deaths of children caught in trunks in hot weather with no way out. This will provide them a means of escape."

While the Las Vegas Valley is known for high temperatures that can kill a child -- or an adult -- in a car, Thursday's high temperature was listed at 84 degrees according to AccuWeather. In other cases of children wandering off and later found dead in car trunks, the temperature has been about the same as Thursday's.

In a four-week span during the 1998 summer 11 children -- ages 2 to 6 -- died after getting trapped in car trunks in three cities -- including five little girls in a Salt Lake City suburb.

On July 13, 1998, four children ages 2 to 5 were discovered inside a trunk in Gallup, N.M. The children apparently had climbed into the car's open trunk. They were believed to have been in the trunk for about two hours on a day with a temperature of about 90 degrees. Three died that day and the fourth died the next day.

On Aug. 2, 1998, two brothers ages 2 and 5 in Greensboro, Pa., apparently found the keys to the family car and climbed inside the trunk. They were missing for several hours before being found. The afternoon temperature for the day was 85 degrees.

On Aug. 8, 1998, five West Valley City, Utah, girls ages 2 to 6 were found dead in the trunk of a car owned by one of the children's parents. One of the girls apparently knew how to operate the trunk-release level next to the driver's seat. The girls had not been seen for about 20 minutes when the search for them started. About 90 minutes later they were found dead inside the trunk. The temperature at the time was listed at 100 degrees.

In all the cases an autopsy determined the cause of death to be hyperthermia or asphyxia.