A cause for action

Those two digits don't tell you that as a newborn, she came home from the hospital at less than 4 pounds, so she initially wore doll clothes.

They don't reflect the fact she said "Daddy" first, although she first walked because she wanted her mother.

They don't tell you that her parents had tried to have a baby for seven years, weathering the storm of trial and disappointment that comes with fertility treatments, only to finally be rewarded with a little girl who would join three brothers from previous unions.

And they don't tell you that the weight Timothy Ryan used to feel of his sleeping daughter on his chest is now a weight he carries within his chest.

Since their baby sitter left Aslyn in a car a week after her first birthday, Tim and Deona Ryan have become activists, working to stop other preventable deaths from heatstroke.

The Hot Spot program, founded in 2004 and sponsored by Tucson Medical Center, warns of the dangers of leaving a child unattended in a car, even for a minute, even in the winter — because this is not just a summer problem, as the Ryans know all too well.

About 20 bus benches carry the public service announcement, with Aslyn's picture on them. Deona is the coordinator, Tim is the helper, but they want the same things, like a trackable national database of heat-related infant deaths, and separate emergency codes for first responders.

The Ryans also are working for legislative changes, since only 12 states specifically prohibit leaving a child alone in a car. In California, police can ticket an adult who leaves a child under the age of 6 unattended in a vehicle. The fine is $100, and assorted court fees can bring the penalty up to more than $300.

In Arizona, it's a misdemeanor to leave a dog unattended in a car, but there are no specific penalties for leaving a child in a car, although parents could be charged with neglect, abuse, reckless endangerment or other crimes.

Rep. Marian McClure, a Tucson Republican, sponsored a bill for the Ryans last year, seeking to make it at least a misdemeanor. It never got to the floor for a vote. "It was easier to get the animal bill through," said McClure, who will try again in the legislative session that begins in January. Part of the problem: The proposed law gets bogged down in the question of whether losing a child in itself is sufficient punishment.

In the Ryans' case, the baby sitter was never charged with a crime. Although the Ryans say she told several different stories during the two-year investigation, one interview indicated she might have left Aslyn alone for up to 50 minutes.

The couple sued civilly, and in mid-December a judge in Honolulu, where the Ryans were living when Aslyn died, awarded the couple $2 million from the baby sitter, who moved to Wyoming and didn't return for the trial. The Ryans' lawyers could not find her to serve her with notice of the judgment. The Ryans know they won't see the money. It was never about that.

This year, at least 35 children died nationally after being left in a hot vehicle. The last of those, a 17-month-old Phoenix boy, was left in a car for seven hours in October while his mother worked a shift as a waitress. Passers-by couldn't see him because the car had heavily tinted windows.

There have been 323 such deaths since 1998, according to Jan Null, a meteorologist in San Francisco who tracks them.

All too often, children are left while parents dart into gas stations, convenience stores or the post office, or leave the child in the car seat while unloading packages. "People think, 'Oh, it's just a minute,' but it can turn into 15, 20, 30 minutes," Deona said, adding that even a minute is too long.

Cars and unattended children don't mix for other reasons, even when heat is not a factor. Every year, there are some deaths from children strangling in a car window, setting a car in motion, getting trapped in the trunk or being backed over.

The federal Centers for Disease Control lists Arizona as having the highest average annual rate of death from heat exposure overall. But there are risks even in milder months. Nationally, the deaths of children left in cars spanned March through October this year.

Back on Feb. 5, 2004, the temperature never got higher than 85 degrees.

The morning was normal. Aslyn was happy and pulling on her dad's pant leg as he got ready for work, trying to get him to read a story.

In the afternoon, just as Deona, a nurse, was leaving work to pick up the baby, she got a call from Tim telling her to meet him at the hospital. When she got there, Aslyn was in shock, having trouble breathing, and bleeding from every orifice. Her temperature was 106 degrees, and she had suffered severe, irreparable brain damage.

The parents made the agonizing decision to remove life support two days later and buried her in Deona's home state of New Mexico.

Then a tech sergeant in the Air Force, Tim, 43, got a humanitarian reassignment to Tucson, where Deona has family. He now works for the U.S. Geological Survey. Deona, 41, a nurse manager at Tucson Medical Center, is responsible for the 155 nurses and patient care technicians who provide mother-baby postpartum care.

Community Benefits Manager Hope Thomas was part of the team that interviewed Deona for the job in August 2004. Deona was young and clearly still in grief, and the job required taking on one of the largest care units in the hospital, but the team agreed she was the right fit for the job.

"Everybody has a story, and this is hers," said Thomas. "Does it get in her way? No. Does it make her a better nurse? Absolutely."

It was Thomas who helped steer Deona to the Hot Spots program, thinking it would be a useful outlet for her grief.

With their boys all in college or entering college, the Ryans live by themselves in a Rita Ranch home with four dogs. They keep a room set up like Aslyn's and sit in it on occasion, surrounded by her Raggedy Ann dolls and the oak crib that Tim handcrafted in the hopes she'd have it as an heirloom someday.

When they encounter their child's picture on a bus bench, they blow her a kiss and whisper they love her. Their license plates, respectively, read MYASLYN and 4ASLYN.

"I keep the perspective in mind that we are saving other families," said Deona. "We don't want anyone else to feel the heartache we feel."

Preventing tragedy

It was after passenger airbags went in and parents were advised to put their children in the back seats that the number of car deaths spiked.

Memory is cue dependent, and, sometimes, people just forget a quiet, sleeping child.

Parents are advised to put a valuable item they will need later, such as a purse or a briefcase, in the back seat, to remind themselves to look there. Another suggestion: Keep a stuffed animal in the car seat. When the child is buckled in, place the stuffed animal in the front with the driver.

There are also sensors, such as the Child Minder, that sense a child, either through a fastened seat belt or body weight, and then beep if an adult walks more than 10 feet away.