A 15-month-old baby has died after being left unattended inside a parked car in an affluent Connecticut community on a hot day, Ridgefield police said Tuesday. The cause of death for the toddler has yet to be determined.
The toddler was left inside the car for an "extended period of time," Capt. Jeff Kreitz said, declining to provide further details. "It was reported to police that the infant was left unattended inside a parked vehicle for an extended period of time," the Ridgefield Police Department confirmed in a statement. The death, which occurred around 6 p.m. Monday, comes weeks after a Georgia father was charged with murder for leaving his 22-month-old son in a hot car for seven hours in a case that has drawn national headlines, Reuters reported.
Temperatures approached 90 degrees in western Connecticut by 6 p.m. Monday, the day that the toddler was found dead in Ridgefield, a town on the New York state line, according to the National Weather Service. It was unclear whether anyone had been arrested in connection with the tragic fatality, with police releasing few details.
Police also declined to answer questions surrounding the death, including how long the child was left in the car and whether a window was rolled down, Huffington Post reported.
State police warned about the dangers of heat-related car deaths in a release issued Tuesday, stating that more than three dozen children die of hyperthermia in cars every year in the United States, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Since 1998, more than 500 children have died from hyperthermia after being in a hot automobile, Connecticut State Police noted. Many caregivers unknowingly leave sleeping babies inside the cars, safety advocacy group Kids and Cars added.
At a news conference Tuesday afternoon, Kreitz did not provide any new information beyond a statement released to the media several hours earlier, citing the ongoing investigation as a significant reason.
