Arizona toddler Charlotte Jones dies in hot car on driveway after dad forgot she was in the back seat
A toddler has died after being left in the back of her father’s car - after he forgot she was in the back seat.
Charlotte Jones was home sick on the day her father, Scott, drove her and her sister to school for the usual drop-off routine. However, when Scott returned home with his ill daughter still in the backseat, he forgot that she hadn't been also been dropped off at school that morning.
Scott logged on to work in his home office in Arizona, where the temperature had reached 36 degrees Celsius, unaware that his daughter was still in the car. It wasn't until his wife, Angela, called to check on them four hours later that his mistake dawned on him.
Speaking to Fox News Digital, Angela recounted the heartbreaking moment her husband's voice changed on the phone when he understood what had happened.
She said: “All of a sudden I could just hear a panic in his voice. I initially thought she had gotten into the pool or something like that, and then he was like, 'Oh, my God, I don’t think I ever got her out of the car'. Then it hit him what has happening and he ran out into the driveway.”
Scott phoned the emergency services straight away, but Charlotte - affectionately called Charly by her loved ones - had already succumbed to the heat, dying in the car just metres from the front door.
“She was our sassy one, the funny one, always making funny faces, our little ham,” Angela added. “She was just the light in our family, and we are constantly talking about her. We try to honour her memory.
“We did everything we could to protect our children, and we just never realised that this was a danger until it happened to us. Sharing my story, we are normal, loving parents. I just want it to resonate with other people so they can have a backup plan or do things, because this is a preventable tragedy and it can be stopped through your different measures.”
Janette Fennell, the founder of Kids and Car Safety, a group that tracks child hot car deaths, says about 55 per cent of these deaths occur because children are unknowingly left in vehicles.
Fennell noted that while deaths from children in front car seats have decreased due to regulations, child vehicular heatstroke deaths have unfortunately increased and remain high. The group has documented at least 1,083 hot car deaths from 1990 to 2023, with 29 deaths last year and 36 in 2022 - and noticed a spike in deaths during the summer months.