A Florida babysitter was accused of manslaughter after the 10-month-old in her care died after being left in a hot car Wednesday, the Baker County Sheriff’s Office said.
Rhonda Jewell, 48, picked up the infant from her mother’s home at 8 a.m. to babysit, and when the mom returned at 1 p.m. they realized the baby had been left inside the vehicle, the sheriff’s office said.
Temperatures in the area were 97 degrees shortly before 1 p.m. Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service.
A sheriff’s incident report says the inside of the vehicle had a temperature recorded at 133 degrees when the child was found, NBC affiliate WTLV of Jacksonville reported.
It was 97 degrees around 1 p.m. in the area. On an 80-degree day, the temperature inside a car can rise to 123 degrees in 60 minutes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
There were no extreme heat advisories or warnings in the Baker County area, which is west of Jacksonville, on Thursday evening but the incident occurred as millions of Americans across the South and Southwest remained under a potentially life-threatening heat wave.
More than 119 million people across the U.S., including in parts of Florida, were under either a heat advisory or an excessive heat warning Thursday evening, according to the National Weather Service.
About 40 children die each year from heatstroke after being left in or trapped in a vehicle, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Around 53 percent of those deaths are when someone forgets a child is in the car, the agency warns. Parents should get into a habit of always checking the back seat before locking the doors, and everyone should always keep cars locked when they aren’t being driven, it says.
Jewell was arrested on a charge of aggravated manslaughter of a child, according to the sheriff’s office.
The other children she was watching were well cared for, according to the sheriff’s office incident report.
Jewell told investigators that after arriving home she went inside to interact with the other children, and completely forgot the child was inside the vehicle, the report says.
An attorney listed in online court records as representing Jewell did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday night..
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
