Texas Boy Creates Device to Prevent Hot Car Deaths

Eric Chaney
Published: June 30,2017
When a baby died in a hot car last year close to his home, a Texas boy decided he was going to do something about it.
He couldn’t bring back his neighbor, who was just 6 months old, but he could invent a device that would keep hot car deaths from becoming a tragedy for other families.
"When baby Fern died, it made me think of all the things... it shouldn't happen to anybody else and it was really upsetting," 10-year-old Bishop Curry told Fox 4 News.

Bishop Curry, 10, set out to design a seatback fan that would kick on automatically in hot cars after a 6-month-old baby in his community died in a hot car last year.
(Screenshot courtesy of Fox 4 News)

One evening, Curry started drawing on a piece of paper. He drew a fan that can be placed on the back of a vehicle’s headrests, a fan programmed to begin blowing if the car reaches a certain temperature, a fan with a built-in Wi-Fi and GPS technology that alerts parents and police if activated.
“The first thing I thought about [when he showed me the drawing] was ‘Why doesn’t this already exist?’” Curry’s father Bishop Curry Sr. told CBS Dallas Fort-Worth. “The second thing I thought about was, 'This is phenomenal.'”
Curry made a clay prototype of his invention, which calls the Oasis, and then made a 3-D model and applied for a provisional patent.
"I was like, 'This would be my one-way shot to actually helping people,'" he told NBC News.
Curry Sr., an engineer at Toyota, brought the idea up at the office, CBS News reports. Toyota was so impressed, they sent Curry and his dad to the Center for Child Injury Prevention Conference, where Bishop presented his idea to car seat manufacturers.
(MORE: Texas Toddler Found Dead After Crawling Into Hot Car)
Several manufacturers showed interest in the product, but Curry says no decisions have been made. The device would still need to undergo testing and modifications before it's ready to hit stores.
To that end, Curry, Sr. started a GoFundMe page to raise funds for attorney fees needed to finalize the patent, protoyping fees, and to help identify a manufacturer.
So far, more than $40,000 has been donated toward making the Oasis a reality.

Bishop Curry holds a prototype of his device, which he is calling the Oasis.
(Screenshot courtesy of Fox 4 News)

"When Bishop asks me, why so many people are giving, I tell him, people believe in you and what you are doing and want to be a part of the movement,” Curry, Sr. told CBSDFW. “We’ve been amazed at the out pouring of donations, but also the positive and encouraging messages to my son and his mission to stop these deaths.” Since the tragic incident, Bishop has met with the parents of the child who inspired his device.
"They really supported me," he told NBC News. "They didn't want anything [like that] to happen to any other families."
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