JSO: 8-month-old girl dead after being left in hot car
An 8-month-old baby is dead after police say she was left in a hot car on Jacksonville’s northside Tuesday.
Police say her father was doing work at a house on Newbury Road when he left the child in his car. Police say the baby was in the car for about an hour before her father returned to his vehicle and found her inside.
“This isn’t a failure of love, or a failure of attentiveness to your child. It is something that could happen to anybody,” Amber Rollins, director of Kids and Car Safety said.
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She says such tragedies happen too easily.
“It’s really impossible to believe that something like this could happen to you. And that is the big concern, because when people believe they’re not going to be affected by something, they’re not taking steps to prevent it,” she added.
The organization Kids and Car Safety reports 28 hot car deaths so far this year across the United States. Rollins says about 39 children die in hot cars in the U.S. on average each year.
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“The last couple of years have been what we would call outliers. We’ve seen a drastic decrease in the number of hot car deaths, and that’s directly related to parents who are working from home, less children who are going to daycares, less people making that morning drop-off which is really when a lot of these tragedies occur,” she said.
Sadly, Rollins says the number of hot car deaths is creeping back up as people go back to work and life returns to normal post-pandemic.
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Rollins offers up a simple tip for any parent of a young child: “Take a reminder item. Could be a diaper bag or a stuffed animal... Any time you put the child in the car seat, bring that up front as your visual que that the child is with you.”
She also suggests putting something you need in the back seat -- something like a purse or a phone. That way, when you reach back for those items, you’ll be reminded that a child is there.
Also Read: 8-month-old girl dies after being left in car, Jacksonville police say
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