9-month-old dead after being found strapped into safety seat by grandmother in hot car for 8 hours

Authored by abcnews.go.com and submitted by panda-rampage

9-month-old dead after being found strapped into safety seat by grandmother in hot car for 8 hours

A 9-month-old child has died after being left in a car by the child’s grandmother for nearly eight hours in what authorities are investigating as a heat-related death.

The incident occurred in Beeville, Texas, some 100 miles southeast of San Antonio, on Wednesday when the Beeville Police Department said a child was found unresponsive at approximately 4 p.m. in the child safety seat of their grandmother’s car, according to a statement from the Beeville Police Department.

“Beeville police detectives are currently on the scene of what appears to be a temperature related death of a 9-month-old child,” authorities said in their statement on Wednesday. “A preliminary investigation has determined that the child’s grandmother had left the child in the rear seat of her car in the child safety seat since approximately 8:30 this morning. The child was found at approximately 4pm non-responsive by the grandmother.”

This comes just one day after a 22-month-old toddler was found dead in another alleged heat-related hot car incident in Corpus Christi.

“The incident is being worked as a criminal homicide,” police said. “The Beeville police are being assisted by the Department of Public Safety Texas Rangers. No charges have been filed in connection to this case at this time, but such charges are expected to be filed.”

According to Kids and Car Safety, there have been at least 25 other cases in which children in the United States have died in hot cars in 2024. Texas has the most child deaths caused by hot cars from 1990 to 2023 with a total of 156 deaths.

The investigation into this case remains open.

walkandtalkk on August 22nd, 2024 at 14:35 UTC »

Fifteen years ago, The Washington Post published an in-depth story about people who have left their children in a hot car, and whether it should be considered a crime. 

What the Post's journalist found is that the people who do this are almost always conscientious parents or family members, wracked by guilt, who were simply distracted in the moment or thought, wrongly, that they had dropped of their child at daycare. 

And the author concluded that it is much easier to make that mistake than most people want to admit.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/fatal-distraction-forgetting-a-child-in-thebackseat-of-a-car-is-a-horrifying-mistake-is-it-a-crime/2014/06/16/8ae0fe3a-f580-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html

lennybriscoe8220 on August 22nd, 2024 at 14:25 UTC »

As soon as the weather gets warm I start preparing myself for dead kids in hot cars and drownings at my local river.

panda-rampage on August 22nd, 2024 at 13:37 UTC »

A 9-month-old child has died after being left in a car by the child’s grandmother for nearly eight hours in what authorities are investigating as a heat-related death.

The incident occurred in Beeville, Texas, some 100 miles southeast of San Antonio, on Wednesday when the Beeville Police Department said a child was found unresponsive at approximately 4 p.m. in the child safety seat of their grandmother’s car, according to a statement from the Beeville Police Department.