- Charlotte Jones remained in the car for about three hours.
- Her father forgot she was in the back of the car after running to school.
An Arizona family is mourning the loss of their ‘sassy’ three-year-old daughter who died under horrific circumstances after her father forgot he had left her in the back seat of his car when temperatures soared above 98 degrees.
According to Charlotte Jones’ mother Angela, the girl was in the car for about three hours before her father noticed.
Angela recalled the 2019 incident in a recent interview with FoxNewsDigital. Her husband, Scott, had just dropped the couple’s other two daughters off at school before returning home to start working from their home office.
Angela said she forgot she had taken her youngest son for a walk. “Suddenly I could hear the panic in her voice,” Angela said.
“At first I thought she had gotten into the pool or something and then he said, ‘Oh my God, I don’t think I ever got her out of the car.’
He called 911 and Charlotte was rushed to a local hospital where she tragically succumbed to the sweltering heat.
Charlotte Jones was left in the car for about three hours in 2019, her father rushed her to a local hospital where she succumbed to the heat.
Just this week, a similar incident occurred in the Santee section of San Diego, where a two-month-old baby died after being left in a car for hours as temperatures approached 100 degrees.
This week in California and Arizona, temperatures surpassed 100 degrees, while millions of Americans continue to sweat.
In 2020, Arizona officials Announced that they would not press charges against Scott Jones.
In her heartbreaking interview, Angela described her daughter as the “cheeky one” who was “always making faces, our little ham.”
“She was the light in our family and we talked about her constantly… We did everything we could to protect our children, and we never realized this was a danger until it happened to us,” he said.
“I just want this to resonate with other people so they can have a backup plan or do things because this is a tragedy that can be prevented and can be stopped with different measures,” Angela continued.
Angela suggested that parents put something next to their children that they will need later, like their wallet, to make sure they notice.
The grieving mother also suggested asking your child’s daycare to contact you if your child does not come to daycare.
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, about 40 children die from heat stroke in the United States each year after being abandoned or trapped in a car.
Most cases occur when a parent or caregiver forgets that the child is in the car.
More than 950 children have died in a hot car in the past 25 years, records show.
Of them, 56 have occurred in the state of California.
Dr. David Diamon, professor of psychology at the University of South Florida, said NBC San Diego It was easier than people think to forget that they have a child in the back of their car, especially when they are going from one place to another.
“We have a powerful autopilot brain memory system that allows us to do things automatically, and in that process we lose awareness of other things in our mind, including the fact that there is a child in the car.”
Children are more vulnerable to extreme heat because their body temperature rises three to five times faster than that of an adult.
Heat stroke begins when the core body temperature reaches approximately 104 degrees Fahrenheit, and death can occur in children at 107 degrees or higher.
