An Arizona family is mourning the loss of their ‘sassy’ three-year-old child who died in horrific circumstances after her father forgot that he left her in the backseat of his car as temperatures went above 98 degrees.
According to Charlotte Jones’ mother, Angela, the child was in the car for around three hours before her father realized.
Angela recalled the 2019 incident in a recent interview with Fox News Digital. Her husband, Scott, had just dropped off the couple’s other two daughters at school before coming home to start work from his home office.
Angela said that he forgot that he had taken his youngest child along for the ride. ‘All of a sudden I could just hear a panic in his voice,’ Angela said.
‘I initially thought she had gotten into the pool or something like that and then he was like: “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 succumbed to the sweltering heat.
Just this week, a similar incident occurred in the Santee section of San Diego where a two month old baby died after being left in a car for hours as temperatures approached 100 degrees.
This week in California and Arizona, temperatures eclipsed 100 degrees, as millions of Americans continue to sweat.
In 2020, officials in Arizona announced that they would not be pursuing charges against Scott Jones.
In her heartbreaking interview, Angela described her daughter as the ‘sassy one’ who was ‘always making faces, our little ham.’
‘She was the light in our family, and we are constantly talking about her… We did everything we could to protect our children, and we just never realized that this was a danger until it happened to us,’ she said.
‘I just want it to resonate with other people so they can have a backup plan or do things because this is a preventable tragedy and it can be stopped through your different measure,’ Angela continued.
Angela suggested that parents put something beside their child that they will need later such as their wallet to ensure that they notice.
The grieving mother also suggested asking your child’s daycare to contact you if your child doesn’t come to daycare.
About 40 children die of heatstroke in the United States every year after being left or becoming trapped in a car, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
The majority of cases happen when a parent or caregiver forgets that the child is in the car.
More than 950 children have died in a hot car over the past 25 years, records show.
Of these, 56 have occurred in the state of California.
Dr David Diamon, a professor of psychology at the University of Southern Florida, told NBC San Diego it was easier than people might believe to forget they have a child at the back of their car, especially when they are rushing about.
‘We have powerful brain-autopilot brain-memory system that gets us to do things automatically and, in that process, we lose awareness of other things in our mind, including that there’s a child in the car.’
Children are more vulnerable to extreme heat because their body temperature rises three to five times faster than an adult’s.
Heatstroke begins when the core body temperature reaches about 104 degrees Fahrenheit, and death can occur in children from 107 degrees.