1-year-old girl dies after being left in a hot car for 8 hours, police in New York say
By Jamiel Lynch and Kate Conerly, CNN
(CNN) — A 1-year-old girl in New York died after her grandmother left her in the back seat of a car for eight hours while she went to work, police said.
The 54-year-old woman forgot to drop off the 14-month-old at day care on her way to work on Monday, the Suffolk County Police Department said in a news release.
“Approximately eight hours later, the woman went to pick up the child at the day care, located on Redwood Lane in Smithtown, when she realized she had left the child in her vehicle,” police said.
The toddler was taken to a hospital where she was pronounced dead.
The death is under investigation and police have not said whether there will be any charges in the case.
This is the 15th child to die in hot vehicle this year, according to NoHeatStroke.org, a website run by a San Jose State University lecturer that tracks hot car deaths.
The high temperature Monday in Smithtown, which is located on the North Shore of Long Island, was 83 degrees.
Temperatures inside a car can climb 20 degrees in just 10 minutes, according to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, and often, that’s enough to cause hyperthermia. Within an hour, car temperatures can rise more than 40 degrees, even when temperatures are low.
A child’s body temperature rises three to five times faster than an adult’s and a child can die when their body temperature reaches 107 degrees, the safety administration said.
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CNN’s Robert Shackelford contributed to this report.
