8-year-old dies after being left in hot car by mother, North Carolina police say
A woman is charged with involuntary manslaughter in North Carolina after her child died from being left in a hot car, police said.
The 8-year-old girl was found in critical condition in a vehicle in Charlotte on Wednesday evening and taken to a local hospital, but later died of a heat-related medical emergencyaccording to Charlotte-Mecklenburg police. The child’s mother was charged with involuntary manslaughter and child abuse by intentional act resulting in serious injury.
The 36-year-old woman is being held in the Mecklenburg County Jail on a $250,000 bond, jail records show.
The woman told police she left her daughter in the car when she went to work, according to an arrest affidavit. Before she left, she said she left the air conditioning in the car on, but the child may have turned it off because she was cold.
The last time the woman heard from her daughter was about an hour and a half before she returned to the car, authorities said, where she found the child lying unresponsive on the backseat floor.
Police said the woman used a hammer to break the rear window to reach her daughter. She then drove to the hospital but stopped at a nearby business to get help, authorities said. Someone called 911 to report the emergency, police said.
After emergency workers took the child to Novant Health Presbyterian Medical Center, the girl was pronounced dead early Thursday morning.
The woman told police she should not have left her child in the car and that she knew it was 94 degrees Fahrenheit (34.4 degrees Celsius) outside, according to the sworn affidavit. She was assigned a public defender to represent her, according to court records. Her next hearing is scheduled for July 17.
There have almost been 1,000 children die from hot car crash since 1998, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The administration recommends leaving cars locked when no one is in them and never leaving a child alone in a car to prevent deaths.