BATON ROUGE, LA – Tragedy struck in Baton Rouge on Tuesday when a nine-month-old baby boy was discovered lifeless in the backseat of a hot car by his parent. As per the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office, the parent had mistakenly forgotten to drop the child off at daycare in the morning, leaving him in the heated vehicle for several hours.
The child was only discovered missing when his parent arrived at the daycare after work to pick him up, and the staff notified the parent that the baby had not been dropped off that day. The parent rushed back to the vehicle around 5:46 p.m., only to find the child deceased.
Local meteorological data from Weather Underground indicates that temperatures in Baton Rouge escalated as high as 94 degrees Fahrenheit on the day of the fatal incident.
Investigations into the heartrending incident remain in progress. The local coroner is presently conducting an autopsy to determine the specific duration the child spent inside the vehicle. It has not been confirmed whether any charges have been filed against the parent.
National Safety Council (NSC) statistics show that an average of 37 children, accounting for over 960 deaths, have fatally succumbed to vehicular heatstroke since 1998. Parental or caregiver absent-mindedness accounts for 53% of these tragic occurrences.
The NSC cautions that even on cloudy or mildly warm days, the temperatures inside vehicles can become lethally high. It adds that children should never be left unsupervised or given unregulated access to a vehicle.
To prevent such horrifying incidents, the NSC recommends adhering to daily routines, reducing distractions, placing an essential item in the vehicle’s backseat, ensuring the car’s doors are always locked and teaching children to not treat cars as playgrounds.