4-year-old child dies in hot car in Poteet
The girl’s death marks the fifth such Texas death this year.
Texas Rangers are investigating after a 4-year-old girl was found dead Tuesday in a car in Poteet. Outside temperatures reached nearly 100 degrees that day.
The girl was reported unresponsive at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday near Avenue E, said Sgt. Deon Cockrell, a Texas Department of Public Safety spokesperson.
Local news stations reported that the girl was found inside a vehicle. Citing an “active and ongoing investigation,” Cockrell did not elaborate on what led to the girl’s death.
No other details — including the child’s identity — have been released.
EMS arrived, and the girl was pronounced dead at the scene, officials said.
At the request of Poteet police, the Texas Rangers are assisting with the case.
Temperatures in Poteet climbed to 97 degrees by 2 p.m., according to the National Weather Service.
An outside temperature of 90 degrees can cause temperatures inside the car to reach 109 degrees in just 10 minutes and climb as high as 133 degrees within an hour, according to noheatstroke.org, a website that tracks vehicle heat stroke child deaths managed by a San Jose State University meteorologist.
The death occurred nearly three weeks after a 5-year-old boy, Aiden Martinez, was found dead in San Antonio on July 9 after being left inside a vehicle for much of the day.
According to San Antonio Police Chief William McManus, the child’s 22-year-old mother intended to drop him off at a day care on Carson Hill Drive near Potranco Road, where she also works nearby.
“She works right next door — she does that routine on a daily basis,” McManus said. “She thought that she had dropped the child off — went to work.”
Instead, Martinez remained in the car. When the mother returned to the school that afternoon, staff told her the boy had never arrived. He was later found unresponsive in his car seat. Emergency crews pronounced him dead at the scene.
By early afternoon that day, San Antonio temperatures had reached a high of 91 degrees.
“This serves as a tragic reminder to check the back seat,” McManus said. “Don’t leave children or pets in the vehicle here in South Texas.”
The latest incident is the fifth hot car-related child death reported in Texas this year, and the 18th such death in the nation, according to KidsandCars.org, a non-profit that collects data on child car-related deaths and promotes public safety campaigns.
Recently, SAPD shared a news story on Facebook about a woman, Raelyn Balfour, whose son died in a hot car after she thought she had dropped him off at daycare in March 2007 in Charlottesville, Virginia.
“You cannot imagine what it feels like to know that you were responsible for your child’s death,” she told the news station.
SAPD reminds parents and guardians to remember to “Stop. Look. Check.” when exiting a vehicle.