Police find 1-year-old boy dead in hot car outside Florida daycare, reports say
A 1-year-old boy was found dead inside a hot car parked outside a daycare near Orlando on Friday.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Office told local media that the child, Jace Leslie, sat in a rear-facing car seat for several hours before his caregiver arrived, WKMG-TV reported. The caregiver, whose name has not been released, was supposed to drop the boy at the daycare before leaving to work but never did, WESH 2 reported.
No arrests have been made, WFTV 9 reports.
Temperatures reportedly reached 87 degrees in Orlando on Friday. The temperature inside a parked car, which traps heat inside, can become much hotter than the temperature outside.
A 2018 study published in the journal Temperature showed that the internal temperature of a car can increase from 85 degrees to 116 degrees in one hour if parked in the sun, according to Insider. Parking in the shade does not substantially reduce the heat.
It is a felony in Florida to leave a child under 6 years old alone in a vehicle for more than 15 minutes, or at all if the car is running, if the child sustains “great bodily harm.”
Last year, 52 children died from heatstroke in cars nationwide, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. So far this year, 21 children have died in cars — two of them happened in Florida, not including Friday’s incident — according to the nonprofit child-safety advocacy group Kids and Cars.
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