By REBECCA DENTON

Staff Writer

When 22-month-old David Jerrod Gordon suffocated in a minivan last summer outside an East Nashville day care, the news struck a special nerve with Rodney Butts, a McGavock High School teacher and father of two.



''I got all soggy-eyed,'' he said — and then he took action.



Over Christmas break, Butts crafted a child safety alarm for vans and buses, one of the first of its kind in the nation.



The invention, which has a patent pending, works with beams of light and sensors to alert the driver if an object is left in the back seat.



The system is activated when the ignition is switched off. A timer comes on, allowing the driver time to walk around the car and remove a child from the safety seat.



If an object is left in the seat when the door closes, the horn blares until someone shuts it off.



The device isn't activated by motion, because a sleeping baby wouldn't necessarily move, said Butts, a former mechanic.



That means the alarm could be triggered by anything left in the seat — a sack of groceries, for example — but the sensors would work fine with the newer style of baby carrier that snaps out of the safety-seat base, Butts said. The sensors could be installed high enough to trigger the alarm only if the baby carrier wasn't removed from its base.



''It's going to be a little bit of trouble but well worth the trouble,'' he said.



The device consists of a handful of parts and could be installed easily in existing child-care vans or personal vehicles, Butts said.



His invention comes to light at an opportune time: State Rep. Ben West, D-Hermitage, introduced legislation in the state House this week that would require day-care centers that provide transportation to have a child safety alarms in the vans.



West said he finds Butts' invention ''admirable'' and is glad to see some attention drawn to the issue.



''We want to bring everything to the table to see what's the most expedient way'' to make children safe in day-care vans, he said.



''We just can't have a child left in a van. That's all there is to it.''



In the United States, about 30 children die each year of heat exposure after being left unattended in cars, experts estimate. In Nashville last year it was David Jerrod. A month before that it was 2-year-old Amber Cox-Cody, who died after being left for eight hours in a day-care van in Memphis. Two similar deaths took place in Memphis in 1999.



Under state rules for day-care centers, the driver and two other center employees are supposed to walk to the back of each vehicle after each trip and look under seats to make sure no children are left. Then they are to sign logs after each inspection.



But that doesn't always happen.



''It's so sad all the way around to me,'' Butts said. ''Every summer it seems there's more cases of it.''



He said a couple of Nashville-area manufacturers have expressed interest in producing his device, and he said he has high hopes for the sale of his creation.



But mostly he wants an end to the heartbreak.



''This is a way to stop it right here,'' he said. ''Hopefully Tennessee can lead the way this time.''











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