2-Year-Old Dies After Being Left in Hot Car in Baltimore

A 2-year-old girl has died after being left alone inside a car Monday.

Baltimore Police say they found the child unconscious in the 3400 block of Juneway, WJZ-13 reports. Temperatures in Baltimore Monday reached about 97 degrees.

Despite life-saving efforts, she died a short time later.

Investigators say the girl had been inside the vehicle for an extended period of time.

Father charged with homicide after he allegedly left 2-year-old daughter in car

Baltimore police said they have arrested and charged a man after he left his 2-year-old daughter unattended inside a car and she later died.

The incident occurred in the 3400 block of Juneway. Police said they were called to that area around 5:15 p.m. Monday for a report of an unconscious child inside a vehicle. Paramedics arrived and took the girl — Leasia Carter — to a hospital, where she was later pronounced dead.

A preliminary investigation found that the girl had been inside the vehicle unattended for “an extended period,” according to police.

Her father, Wilbert Carter, 31, is charged with murder and child abuse. He is being held at the city jail.

Authorities throughout the area sent out messages on social media saying it is never okay, especially in the summer heat, to leave elderly people, pets or children unattended or in vehicles.

According to highway and child-safety experts, children left in hot cars is a major issue every summer.

Heatstroke is among the leading causes of vehicle-related deaths that are not considered crashes among kids under 14, according to the experts.

In 2014, 31 children died from heatstroke after being left unattended in cars, according to data from the Department of Meteorology and Climate Science at San Jose State University.

Research at San Jose found that more than half of the about 630 children who died from heatstroke in a car over a 17-year period had been forgotten by their caregiver.

Seventeen percent died because a caregiver had intentionally left the kid in the vehicle. And about 30 percent of the deaths were the result of a child playing in an unattended vehicle.