3-month-old dies in hot car parked outside Houston mental health facility

Authorities are investigating after a 3-month-old died inside a hot vehicle on a day when temperatures climbed to 101 degrees in Houston.

A mother and her two children arrived at the Harris Center for Mental Health and IDD — the public mental health authority for Texas’ Harris County — for a visit on Tuesday sometime after noon, according to Click2Houston. She took one child, a 4-year-old, inside with her, but police said she left the baby unattended in her car.

When she returned, she found the boy unresponsive and brought him inside the mental health center, where nurses attempted CPR.

First responders with the Houston police and fire departments arrived on the scene just before 3:30 p.m., and they also attempted additional life-saving measures. The infant was then rushed to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead, according to police.

The Harris County medical examiner will conduct an autopsy and determine the cause of death. It’s not clear how long the baby was left alone in the heat.

Houston Police Assistant Chief Yasar Bashir called the incident an “avoidable” tragedy while emphasizing it’s something that “should never happen.”

“Houston gets very hot and under no circumstances you should leave a child in a car, not even for a moment,” he told reporters during a press conference on Tuesday evening. “Especially an infant or a child, the body temperature goes up very quickly.”

Tuesday’s high temperature in Houston was 101 degrees, per the National Weather Service. And it was even hotter inside the vehicle, where temps can spike by 20 degrees in just 10 minutes, according to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration.

Within an hour, car temperatures can climb more than 40 degrees, even when outdoor temperatures are low.

No charges have been filed.