2
toddlers die in hot car after they 'took off,'
Weatherford mom says
Updated at 9:10 p.m.:
Revised to include the victims' identities.
Two
toddlers died Friday after their mother says they locked
themselves inside a hot car in Weatherford.
The
children's mother called authorities around 4 p.m. to
report that her 2-year-old daughter and 16-month-old son
"took off," the Parker County Sheriff's Department said.
The woman searched the property for the children and
found them locked inside a small four-door vehicle. She
said they had gotten into the car on their own and
locked themselves inside.
The temperature at that
time was 96 degrees.
The mother broke a window to get
to the children, who were unresponsive, and emergency
crews were sent to the scene in the 200 block of
Rambling Loop.
The children, identified as
2-year-old Juliet and 1-year-old Cavanaugh Ramirez, were
pronounced dead just after 4:30 p.m. The Tarrant County
medical examiner had not determined a cause and manner
of death for them yet.
Sheriff Larry Fowler said the
case, which he called "especially heartbreaking," was in
the early stages of investigation.
More than 700
children have died in hot cars in the U.S. since 1998 —
including 107 in Texas, not including Friday's —
according to noheatstroke.org, which tracks such deaths.
Seven Texas children died in hot cars in 2016, including
two in North Texas.