A nine-year-old girl died in a hot car in Texas on Monday after her mother left her there while she went to work, local officials said.
Her death followed the passing of a three-month-old infant boy in Mission in the same state on Friday and the death of a four-year-old in Brownsville on Saturday, both likewise trapped in overheated vehicles.
NBC’s local affiliate reports that a man in Mission is facing a charge of injury to a child causing death after admitting that he had been drinking and had forgotten the infant was in the car when he went to lie down. The same outlet reports that a woman is facing the same charge in Brownsville after a four-year-old was found unresponsive in a daycare van.
In the most recent incident, cops were called to the scene in Galena Park on Monday just after 2pm, where the child was found “unresponsive” in a white Toyota Camry sedan that was backed into a parking lot and had a visor displayed on the windscreen.
“Nobody would necessarily have been able to see [her],” said Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez.
CPR was given but the child was later pronounced dead at Harris Health Lyndon B Johnson Hospital in Houston.
The mother, who remains unidentified, was detained by police.
Temperatures in Harris County soared to 95F Monday and stark warnings have been issued for severe thunderstorms following the intense heat.
Gonzalez said the young child is believed to have been left alone in the car from 6am in the morning until 2pm in the afternoon.
Her mother, 36 and who works at the Galena Park Sports Complex, “left the child unattended with some water, the windows partially down, and proceeded to go to work for the day,” Gonzalez said in a press conference Monday.
It was only when she finished her eight-hour shift that she found her daughter unresponsive, authorities said. Crime scene investigators attended to the scene and an active investigation is now underway.
Gonzalez said the incident was “a tragic reminder once again of how dangerous it is to leave unattended children in a vehicle for any amount of time.”
He added that temperatures were extremely high and the child could have gone into distress very soon because “a child’s temperature increases at a much faster rate.” Gonzalez stressed that there “was no excuse whatsoever” to leave a child unattended in a car.
According to National Safety Council statistics, 39 children died in hot cars in 2024.
So far this year, 13 deaths have been reported. The NSC says that, on average, 37 children under the age of 15 die each year from heatstroke after being left in a vehicle.
Almost every state has experienced at least one hot-car-related death since 1998.
Looking further back, at least 1,136 children have died in overheated cars nationally since 1990 while another 7,500 survived with varying types and severities of injuries, according to data compiled by Kids and Car Safety.
Approximately 88 percent of children who suffer that fate are three years old or younger and a majority (55 percent) were unknowingly left behind by an otherwise loving or responsible adult.
