A 1-year-old girl died after her mother left her in a car for nearly 10 hours in Houston on Thursday, authorities said. Harris County sheriff’s deputies responded to a report of a child left in a car at 6:30 p.m., Sgt.
Ben Beall said during a brief news conference Thursday night.
1-year-old girl dies after mother left her in car in Houston for nearly 10 hours
Investigators have determined that the child’s mother took the boy and his siblings, ages 3 and 5, to a day care in the morning.
They said she left the 1-year-old in the vehicle and returned home.
During the day, the mother took another vehicle for exercise, Beall said. When she went to pick up her three children from day care, only two were there.
The daycare had no record of the 1-year-old being detained, police said.
The 1-year-old was discovered in the vehicle around 6 pm. She had been there since 8:30 a.m., Beall said. She was found on the floor of the car and pronounced dead at the scene.
The high in Houston on Thursday was 91 degrees. Children have died after being left in cars in temperatures as low as 60 degrees, according to kidsandcars.org. Children overheat three to five times faster than adults and the temperature inside a car can reach 125 degrees in minutes.
Beall said agents are trying to interview parents, noting a “language problem.”
An average of 39 children die in hot cars in the U.S. each year, according to kidsandcars.org. Twenty children have died so far this year.
Earlier this month, 20-month-old twin boys were found dead inside a car in the parking lot of a South Carolina day care center.
Put her in prison for a long, long time