PHOENIX

Police: Dad was drunk when Phoenix child died in car

Garrett Mitchell
The Republic | azcentral.com

The calls begin to come in every year about this time: A harried parent or a distracted caregiver leaves a child unattended in a car and returns to find the child critically injured or dead.

Police say a similar scenario unfolded Monday afternoon in southwest Phoenix after a 41-year-old father left his 2 1/2-year-old son in the family's sedan. By the time someone found the child hours later, Alpha Koryor was unresponsive.

James Koryor

Alpha was pronounced dead at Phoenix Children's Hospital, and police arrested Alpha's father, James Koryor, early Tuesday morning on suspicion of manslaughter and child endangerment.

It was the first instance in 2015 of a child car death resulting from heatstroke in the United States, according to experts who track the issue.

Another factor was at play in Monday's case: Phoenix police Sgt. Trent Crump said Koryor's apparent alcohol impairment made parenting nearly impossible and contributed to the felony allegations he is facing.

"We're looking at a criminal element ... because we have an individual who has been drinking while he's trying to parent, and it just doesn't mix," Crump said.

Koryor had bloodshot, watery eyes at the time of his arrest and had a "strong odor of alcohol coming from his body," according to court documents.

Experts who track deaths of children in cars are concerned thatresponsible parents would look at a case like Koryor's and think, "That could never happen to me."

"In most cases, it happens to the best of parents," said Janette Fennell, the founder and president of Kids and Cars, a non-profit organization dedicated to raising awareness on the issue.

Temperatures inside a closed car can rise exponentially in mere minutes, said San Jose State University researcher and meteorologist Jan Null.

On Monday, temperatures in Phoenix hovered in the 90s, so the car's interior could have climbed over 100 degrees within 10 minutes, Null said.

Investigators said Alpha struggled to get out of the family's Nissan sedan for nearly two hours.

According to Null, more children die in hot cars in Arizona than in all but three states: Texas, Florida and California.

A factor in the rise of deaths began in the early 1990s as part of an effort to bring children to the backseat to prevent airbag-caused injury, Null said.

Because children in the backseat are less visible to drivers, many are forgotten, he added.

According to the Kids and Cars website, 30 American children died of heatstroke inside vehicles during 2014. That number decreased from 44 deaths in 2013.

Fennell stressed that these deaths are not only related to heat, and suggested parents have a "look before you lock" mentality in all conditions.

Last August, the Maricopa County Attorney's Office launched "Don't Leave Me Behind," a campaign to raise awareness about the dangers of leaving children unattended in vehicles.

Part of the effort included a large mobile billboard — featuring a child and a dog in the backseat of a vehicle — that was displayed on busy intersections throughout the month as a reminder to Valley drivers to check their backseats.

A spokesman said the effort will continue this summer, closer to Memorial Day.

Last summer, a Valley inventor created a product intended to combat the deadly problem by sensing when a child is sitting in a car seat while the car is not running. It alerts the driver with a chime similar to when keys are left in the ignition.

Though it was well-intentioned, Null said that no device could prevent all deaths nationwide, and even if the government intervened by placing alarms in vehicles, "it would still be a problem."

The best strategy, he said, is for parents to become aware by placing reminders in their cars, like a cellphone or briefcase in the backseat or a stuffed animal in the passenger seat to remind them to look behind them.