- Baby was found alone inside her parents’ car in Baytown, Texas, Monday, where temperatures outside were in the 90s
- Parents told sheriff’s deputies they had been taking their other special-needs child to medical appointments all morning
- infant had been trapped in the car for at least three hours
A nine-month-old baby girl has died after sheriff’s deputies in Texas found her alone inside her family’s scorching-hot car on Monday.
The Harris County Sheriff’s office received a 911 call on Monday afternoon reporting an unresponsive infant inside of a vehicle parked at Baytown Country Place Estates on Jones Road.
Deputies who responded to the mobile home park at 2pm rescued the baby from the vehicle and rushed her to San Jacinto Hospital, where she passed away a short time later.
Harris County Sheriff’s deputies on Monday discovered a nine-month-old baby inside this white vehicle parked outside her family’s mobile home in Baytown, Texas
The infant died after spend at least three hours trapped inside the boiling-hot car
It is unclear how long the baby was left inside the overheated car, but Sheriff Ed Gonzalez told KTRK her family had returned home from running errands that morning at around 11am.
Temperatures in Baytown were in the 90s on Monday, but the sheriff said it was much hotter inside the locked car.
Sheriff Ed Gonzalez (pictured) said the baby’s death could have been prevented
When interviewed by law enforcement officials, the victim’s parents said they had been going to various medical appointments for one of their other children, who has special needs, and they mistakenly thought someone had brought the baby inside the house.
The name of the infant has not been made public. So far, no charges have been filed against the parents in connection to the girl’s death, but the investigation into the incident is still ongoing.
‘I hate this,’ Sheriff Gonzalez tweeted Monday in reference to the baby’s hot-car death. ‘These deaths are preventable.’
According to the website KidsAndCars.org, on average 37 children die in the US each year from heatstroke after being left inside vehicles.
Data shows that 43 children succumbed to vehicular heatstrokes in 2017, and there have been nine confirmed cases so far this year.
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