Annie Landreville remembers chancing upon a baby who was minutes away from dying in the back of a stifling hot car.

“Her crying was muffled and she was really, really red all over,” said the 33-year-old, who found the three-month old girl in a Rockland, Ont. parking lot in 2009. At the time, the temperature was about 30 C. “Luckily the door was unlocked. Maybe it was just the mother in me, but I pulled her out as fast as I could. She was just drenched.”

Police said the baby was stuck in the car for about 15 minutes and almost died of heatstroke. The infant’s mother, who was later charged with child abandonment, initially lashed out at Landreville for taking the baby out of the car, she said.

“She was picking up a cake from a bakery and didn’t think it was a big deal,” said Landreville. “When people leave their dogs in a car, it’s a big deal. Why are we more cautious about our pets than our children?”

In the U.S., more than 650 children have died of vehicular heatstroke since 1990, according to KidsandCars.org. There are no equivalent statistics in Canada.

“This is the problem,” said John McKiggan, the Canadian spokesperson for KidsandCars. “There are no government or health organizations tracking this information.”

McKiggan says a lack of stats showing how often such incidents occur could lead to the same mistake being made “by people who think it’ll never happen to them.”

Extrapolating from the U.S. numbers, the Canada Safety Council estimates between four to six children die of vehicular heatstroke in Canada each year.

“We see them every year,” said Raynald Marchand, the council’s general manager. “They’re usually not done on purpose. It often happens because a routine is broken. Another parent has to drop off the child, they drive to work and they forget.”

Marchand says temperatures inside closed cars can rise so fast that a child’s internal temperature regulation gets overwhelmed and sent into shock. On a 35 C day, heat levels in a car can soar to 50 C within 20 minutes. Heatstroke occurs at 40.5 C.

“Somebody might just run into the bank expecting to be done in a minute,” said Marchand. “But something could come up and they forget the child’s in the car … It can happen easily.”