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Sunday, Jun. 21, 2009

2-year-old girl dies in hot car

A 2-year-old girl died in a hot car on North Upper Street in Lexington on Saturday evening.

The toddler, identified late Saturday as April Knight, and two other children were being cared for by grandparents while their father was at work.

They had been out and returned to the home at 530 North Upper. The grandparents took one of the older children, a 12-year-old, into the home to deal with an issue she was having and thought that the other child was getting the 2-year-old out, said Lt. Scott Blakely of Lexington police.

After about two hours, he said, they discovered that the toddler was still in the car. According to a report from the Fayette County Coroner’s office, the girl was found still strapped in her car seat.

Police were called to the scene at 5:39 p.m. and performed CPR.

The child was taken to the University of Kentucky Hospital and pronounced dead at 6:10 p.m. An autopsy will be conducted by the State Medical Examiner in Frankfort.

Blakely said the investigation is continuing, and he did not know yet whether charges will be filed.

The temperature in Lexington reached 89 degrees Saturday.

In just an hour’s time, the temperature inside a vehicle can rise more than 40 degrees, according to one study cited by the Associated Press in a 2007 analysis.

Nationally, 340 children died of heat exhaustion in vehicles over a 10-year period, the AP reported in 2007.

Among them were several Kentucky children.

Bryan Puckett was 11 months old when his babysitter, Karen Murphy, left him in a car in the Mist Lake Plaza on Richmond Road in 1999.

His death led the legislature to enact Bryan’s Law, which defines as second-degree manslaughter the crime of leaving a child in a vehicle, if the child dies.

Nine-month-old Daniel Jewell died in 2005, after his father, Leon Jewell, left him in the family’s SUV. Jewell, who had been drinking the day of the baby’s death, pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter.