Toddler dies after
being left in car outside school
ST. LOUIS COUNTY,
Mo. – A one-year-old child died Tuesday after being left in a parked vehicle
outside a south county school
According to Sgt. Shawn McGuire, a
spokesman for the St. Louis County Police Department, officers were called
to the Casa Dia Montessori School on Kinswood Lane around 6 p.m. for a
report of an unresponsive child.
The child was rushed to a local
hospital after being left in a car for extended period of time, McGuire
said. The one-year-old was later pronounced dead at the hospital.
An
autopsy has been scheduled for Tuesday, McGuire said. The child will be
identified at a later time.
The investigation remains ongoing.
Dead child may have been left in van
for extended period of time, St. Louis County police say
The director of a Montessori school in St. Louis County said a
1-year-old boy who died Monday was already unresponsive when he arrived at
the school in his mother's van.
Donna Tilley, director of Casa Dia
Montessori school, said that once the mother realized the boy was in her van
and unresponsive, he was brought inside the school, where they called 911
and performed CPR to try to revive him.
The boy was taken to St.
Anthony's Medical Center, where he died. The boy's name has not been
released. The school says he was a student there. An autopsy is scheduled
for Tuesday afternoon.
St. Louis County police are investigating the
case. They say he may have been left inside a vehicle for "an extended
period of time."
Tilley said the mother arrived at the school at 4:55
p.m. Monday.
Casa Dia Montessori school is at 610 Kinswood Lane in
south St. Louis County, near Interstate 255 and Telegraph Road.
"The
unresponsive 1-year-old male, who was possibly left in a vehicle for an
extended period of time, was transported to a local hospital while
life-saving efforts were attempted," St. Louis County police said in an
email. "The 1-year-old male was pronounced deceased at the hospital."
Police confirmed that the vehicle involved was not a school vehicle. No
other details were released.
Police haven't said how long the child
may have been left in the vehicle or what the mother said to investigators.
Tilley told the Post-Dispatch on Tuesday that Rick Deeba, president of
Casa Dia Montessori-Kinswood, released the following statement:
"At
4:55pm, 9/11/17, a mother arrived at Casa Dia Montessori-Kinswood with an
unresponsive child in her van. Once the mother realized he was unresponsive
in her van, the student was brought into the building. 911 was called and
CPR was administered to try to revive the child. The child was then
transported by ambulance to St. Anthony’s Hospital.
"All of our
hearts are so saddened by this tragedy," Deeba's statement said. "And we
grieve with this family at the terrible accidental loss of this child.
Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers."
Tilley cried as she
read the statement over the phone to the Post-Dispatch.
Deeba told
the Post-Dispatch that surveillance cameras are mounted inside and outside
the school. He is certain of the 4:55 time because that is when the
computers clocked the mother's check-in, Deeba said.
Detectives in
the St. Louis County Police Department's Bureau of Crimes Against Persons
are handling the investigation. The medical examiner performing the autopsy
should be able to determine if the child's death was heat-related, officials
said.
The high temperature for St. Louis on Monday was 79 degrees at
2:19 p.m., according to the National Weather Service. While that temperature
doesn't seem extreme, the heat inside a car can rise rapidly.
The
circumstances of the child's Monday death aren't clear. But at 80 degrees
parked in the sun, the average temperature inside a car is 19 degrees higher
than the outside air temperature after 10 minutes, according to Jan Null,
adjunct professor of meteorology at San Jose State University. After another
10 minutes, it goes up 10 more degrees. After an hour it would be up 43
degrees, to 123 degrees.