A four-year-old Texas girl sweated to death in a hot truck after being forgotten by her caregivers for about an hour.
Houston Police Department officers responded to emergency calls from an apartment complex near 6500 Hollister Street around 6:30 p.m.
Officials said the girl spent the day running errands with two women and a group of children in a Chevy pickup truck.
The adults later parked their car at the apartment complex and took everyone inside, but left the toddler behind.
The incident comes amid multiple reports of babies sweating to death in overheated cars after being forgotten by their parents. Experts warn that children can become ill within minutes of being locked in a car.
Houston Police Department officers responded to emergency calls around 6:30 p.m. from an apartment complex near the 6500 block of Hollister Street.
Investigators believe the girl was left in the scorching pickup truck for about an hour, until one of the women realized the child was missing. She came outside to look for her and called 911.
She was rushed to hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
Homicide investigators also arrived on scene and reportedly spoke to witnesses. It is unclear if any arrests have been made.
After the incident, police Lt. Larry Crowson warned that it is very important for parents to know where their child is.
“In this kind of weather, it doesn’t even take a few minutes for someone left in the car to become seriously ill or die,” the official said.
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, about 40 children in the United States die each year from heatstroke after being left or trapped in a car.
In most cases, a parent or caregiver forgets that the child is in the car.
At the time of the incident, temperatures in the city of Houston were reportedly between 85 and 91 degrees Fahrenheit.
Investigators believe the girl was left in the scorching pickup truck for about an hour until one of the women realized the child was missing, came outside to look for her and called 911.
Homicide investigators also arrived on scene and reportedly spoke to witnesses
Data shows that more than 950 children have died in hot cars over the past 25 years.
Residents are currently being warned to prepare for sunny skies and rising temperatures expected to reach the top 90 today as Hurricane Beryl heads towards the state.
Reports of the incident come less than a month after a little girl died after being left in the backseat of a hot car, just two months after her adoptive parents took her in as a newborn.
Diana Sofia Aleman Roman was found unresponsive in her SUV outside her parents’ home in Santee, San Diego, at approximately 12:20 a.m. on June 13.
She had been in the car for several hours in a temperature of 17 degrees Celsius when a family member found her and called 911. The baby girl was rushed to the hospital, but did not survive.
Detectives with the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office are investigating how Diana was left in the car and who left her there. No charges have been filed.
Diana’s parents Romer and Jayson De Los Santos took her home on April 11 after flying from Arizona to the hospital, where they met her baby girl for the first time.
Studies show that the temperature inside a car can rise to 104F in just half an hour on a 70F day and can reach 115F in an hour. The body’s organs begin to shut down at 107F.
An Arizona mother recently gave her parents a stern warning about this common problem.
Two-month-old baby girl Diana Sofia De Los Santos, pictured with her father Romer, died after being left in the back of a hot car
Charlotte Jones was in a car for about three hours in 2019, her father drove her to a local hospital where she succumbed to the heat
Angela Jones lost her ‘brazen’ three-year-old daughter Charlotte in 2019 after her father left her in the backseat of his car when temperatures soared to over 37 degrees Celsius.
The child was in the car for about three hours before her father noticed.
Angela recalled the incident in a recent interview with Fox News Digital. Her husband, Scott, had just dropped the couple’s other two daughters off at school and then returned home to work from his home office.
Angela said he forgot he had brought his youngest child. “Suddenly I heard panic in his voice,” Angela said.
“I thought at first she had gotten in the pool or something, but then he said, ‘Oh my God, I don’t think I ever got her out of the car.’
He called 911 and Charlotte was rushed to a local hospital, where she tragically died from the stifling heat.