(NewsWorthy.news) – Authorities have opened a case in California following the death of a 2-month-old baby who was left alone in a car for hours.
The child was found by a family member on Thursday June 13 in the San Diego suburb of Santee. She was reportedly left in an SUV outside a house for “several hours,” according to the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, which announced the investigation on Wednesday June 19.
The baby was reportedly found “unresponsive” by the family member who called 911. Emergency personnel responded and provided medical assistance outside the home. The child was then taken to Sharp Grossmont Hospital, located in La Mesa, and later passed away. Her death is currently being investigated by the child abuse unit of the sheriff’s department.
On Monday June 24, police Lt. Lon Nguyen revealed that the 2-month-old had been identified as Diana Sofia Aleman Roman. She was reportedly found roughly nine hours after her family returned home at three in the afternoon on June 12.
Based on June 13 reports from the National Weather Service, the high temperature on that day was 77 degrees. Jan Null, a meteorologist with expertise in hot car deaths, said that the car’s internal temperature would have gone up to about 110 degrees in just 30 minutes or 120 degrees in an hour.
Null expressed the importance of understanding that “it doesn’t take a lot of heat” for children to suffer temperature-related deaths in closed vehicles. This can happen even if the outdoor heat is only in the 60s and has tragically occurred in the state before. However, the baby girl who died in Santee is the first such death to take place in California in 2024.
The case is only the third of its kind to be reported this year throughout the country. Based on data collected by Null—who began monitoring statistics in 1998—57 hot car deaths have occurred in California over the past two decades.
Copyright 2024, NewsWorthy.news
