An 18-month-old girl was found dead in a hot car overnight, after her parents left her to attend a Fourth of July party.
It’s the tenth child to die after being left in a hot car in the country and the fifth child to die in Florida so far this year, according to Kids and Car Safety.
“This child has suffered a torturous death. An absolute torturous death,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said. “The baby still had a core temperature of 104.4 degrees and this was three hours after the baby was taken out of the hot car.”
A Lakeland couple was charged with aggravated manslaughter. Joel and Jazmine Rondon tested positive for meth, marijuana, and alcohol after investigators say leaving their child behind to go to a party.
Kids and Car Safety reports that it’s actually rare for drugs and alcohol to be involved in hot car tragedies. The majority were unknowingly left by an otherwise loving, responsible parent or caregiver.
“There’s so many ways that this happens. I always like to remind families that nobody wakes up and thinks today is going to be the day some kind of tragedy happens to my family. But we’ve seen five of the ten deaths happen in Florida so far,” Jessica Winberry said with Safe Kids Northeast Florida.
These tragedies can happen to anyone, but you can create simple habits to keep your child safe. An easy thing you can do to prevent a tragedy is leave something important in your backseat. Leaving your phone or a shoe in the back seat will remind you that a child is in the car with you.
“Every one of these situations unfortunately even though sometimes mistakes are made could have possibly been prevented,” Winberry said.
Leaving a child behind for any amount of time while you run inside a store, or your home can be dangerous. Winberry said there’s no evidence that leaving a window cracked helps control the temperature inside the car.
“It’s really important to remember that small children dehydrate and heat up more quickly than we do as adults,” Winberry said. “They don’t have as much time.”
The average number of U.S. child hot car deaths is 38 per year. That’s one death every nine days.
Winberry said the most dangerous mistake a parent or caregiver can make is to think leaving a child alone in a vehicle could never happen to them or their family.