Last year, according to NoHeatStroke, a record 52 children died after being trapped in a hot vehicle.
Missouri police are now investigating the tragic death of an 11-month-old girl who died after 15 hours in a hot car. It was already too late when first responders were called to St. Louis suburb of Calverton Park. The grandmother of the baby, after making a horrific discovery, alerted the authorities.“A relative who was going to move the vehicle found the child,” Calverton Park Police spokesman Chris Robertson told People.
First responders attempted to revive Joseline Eichelberger, but they failed.
“Unfortunately the child passed away from the heat. It was approximately 79 degrees that afternoon and inside a vehicle, it gets much hotter, ” Robertson said.
Joseline might have been left in the hot car for as long as 15 hours, according to police. The Calverton Park Police will investigate her death with the St. Louis County Prosecutor’s Office.
The investigators have a good idea of what happened, but at the moment they refuse to release any information.
Many have wondered how parents might have forgotten their child in the vehicle for 15 hours. Some testimonies show the parents didn’t know Joseline was left in the vehicle.
Her parents thought that the other one had gotten her out, according to family friend Barbara Beckett. “You have two young parents,” she told KMOV.
“One telling one to get the child and other telling the other…you know, mistakes are made. It’s a nightmare, they are traumatized. They can’t stop crying.”
No arrests have been made yet, according to the police.
”Nobody would intentionally do that,” Lilly Belfield, a family cousin, told FOX 4.
“If you saw her smile, laugh, giggle, you would think the same thing.”
Joseline’s grandmother created a GoFundMe to help the family with funeral expenses.
According to NoHeatStroke.org, more than 800 kids have died from Pediatric Vehicular Heatstroke (PVH) since 1998.
It doesn’t take long to achieve deadly temperatures inside a vehicle, and June through August is generally the hottest time of the year.
Never leave a child in a hot vehicle.
