Another Hot Car Death, This Time In Pennsylvania: 4-Year-Old Girl Dies After Being Left In Car For Hours While Caretaker Worked
A 4-year-old Pennsylvania girl died last week after being left in a hot car for several hours while her caretaker went to work, WTVR (Richmond, Virginia) is reporting.
As of this writing, the names of neither the girl nor the woman who left her in a hot car have not been made public, nor has the relationship between the two.
Authorities in Williamsport, Pennsylvania say that the woman who cares for the girl usually drops her off at daycare before going to work, but for reasons that aren’t clear, on Friday she drove straight to work. She then went inside her workplace and worked for several hours while the girl was trapped in the hot car. Meanwhile, the temperature outside reached as high as 97 degrees, and the heat index was even higher.
At about 3:30 p.m., the woman stepped out to her vehicle and found the girl inside. Emergency crews were called; paramedics took the girl to a hospital, where she later died.
Neighbor Lonnie Brooks told WNEP (Scranton, Pennsylvania) that he is sad for the woman who left the girl in the car.
“I know she is sad and torn, you know, because she lost a loved one because she left the baby in the car. I mean, damn, wow.”
This is not the first time a child has died in a hot car while a caretaker went to work. In a heartbreaking 2007 case out of Virginia, reported by Parenting, Mary Parks went to work one day and somehow completely forgot that her son, Juan, was in his car seat in the back of her car. It was only after she got home from work that night and was talking over her day with her husband did she realize, to her horror, that Juan had been with her and that she’d left him in her car while she worked.
And in at least one case, a parent has left a child to die in the back of a hot car as a deliberate act of murder and then tried to pass it off as an accident. In 2014, according to an Inquisitr report, Justin Ross Harris of Georgia fastened his son, Cooper, into the back seat of his SUV and then went to work while Cooper died in agony in the heat. Harris tried to act like it was an accident, but prosecutors later determined that he had searched “how long does it take a child to die in a hot car” and “child free lifestyle” on his computer. Authorities believed he and his wife didn’t want to be parents anymore and deliberately murdered Cooper by baking him alive in a hot car.
New venue for Justin Ross Harris trial https://t.co/P3TcryquSQ pic.twitter.com/Hvjx6psRtO
— WMUR TV (@WMUR9) June 16, 2016
On average, about 37 kids die each year from being left in hot cars, according to Kids and Cars, and under the right conditions, a baby or toddler can die in as little as 15 minutes. (The same is true for pets, by the way: never leave a pet alone in a hot car, either, even with the windows rolled down slightly, as some pet owners think they can do.)
Cars heat up fast! Keep kids and pets out of hot cars! (Source: https://t.co/qTCEWWNzBx) pic.twitter.com/eV4Mlhtwkr
— Betty C. Jung (@bettycjung) July 20, 2016
In the video embedded below, you can see what happens to a small child in those 15 minutes.
Warning: the video below contains content that may be disturbing to some viewers.
Needless to say, kids should never be left alone in a car, even for a few minutes, and especially in hot weather.
As of this writing, it is not clear if the Pennsylvania woman who left a 4-year-old girl in a hot car while she went to work is facing criminal charges.
[Image via Shutterstock/Lukas Gojda]
