A tragic incident in Louisiana has left a six-month-old baby boy dead after one of his parents forgot to drop him off at daycare, leaving him in a car as temperatures soared above 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
According to ABC News, the baby was discovered in the backseat around 5:46 PM on Tuesday. The heat index in Baton Rouge, the “real-feel” measurement of heat, reached a sweltering 112 degrees that day.
The East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office reported that the parent realized the oversight when they went to pick up the baby from daycare at the end of the day. An investigation is ongoing, and the coroner’s office is conducting an autopsy to determine how long the child was left in the car.
More than a dozen children have died after being left in hot cars across the country this year, according to the safety group KidsAndCars.org. Since 1990, at least 1,100 children have died in hot cars, with 88 percent of them under the age of three.
This heartbreaking incident is part of a disturbing trend. In May, a six-year-old girl in Florida died after being left in a locked car for hours, exposed to extreme heat. The mother’s boyfriend was arrested and charged with aggravated manslaughter of a child.
Earlier this month, a two-year-old boy in Georgia died after being found inside a hot car. Authorities with the Cobb County Police Department said the toddler was found unresponsive in a parked vehicle in Marietta, about an hour outside of Atlanta. Despite first responders’ efforts, the child was pronounced deceased at the hospital.
The devastating loss of the six-month-old in Louisiana underscores the critical need for awareness and preventive measures to protect children from the dangers of hot cars.