Death rate of children in summer vacation drops from last year

21 children under 18 died in accidents on the roads, in community and at home during July and Aug. '08, compared to 31 during same period in '07.

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
car crash 88 224 (photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
car crash 88 224
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
A "dramatic decline" in the number of children killed during the summer vacation was reported by the National Council for the Child on Monday. Twenty-one children under 18 died in accidents on the roads, in the community and at home during July and August 2008, compared to 31 during the same period in 2007 and 34 in 2006 (which includes the seven children killed by Hizbullah rockets and missiles during the Second Lebanon War). During the year, an average of six or seven children are killed each month from accidents, thus the toll during the summer vacation was still higher than during the school year, council director Dr. Yitzhak Kadman said. Of the 21 killed during this past summer, 16 were boys and five were girls. Eight were under the age of eight, four between four and six, five between seven and 12 and the rest 13 and up. Eleven were Jews, eight were non-Jews and the backgrounds of the remaining two were unknown. Road accidents caused four deaths; homicide four, home and garden accidents four, drowning three, electrocution two, and fires, suicide, unintentional strangling and inhalation of glue one each. Kadman added that thanks to publicity campaigns, for the first time in several years no child was harmed or killed by being left alone in a hot vehicle. He gave credit as well to Beterem, the National Council for Child Safety and Health, that educates parents and the general public. This year's statistics were encouraging, said Kadman, despite the highly publicized murders of four-year-olds Rose Pizem, Michael Kruchkov and Alon Yehuda within a single month this summer. The statistics highlighted the fact that if adults paid more attention, children's lives could be saved, he said. This was also an indictment of the adult world, because with a little awareness, children's senseless deaths could be minimized, the National Council for the Child said.