Two-year-old toddler dies after being left in vehicle for over seven hours
Another toddler had died after her busy mom accidentally left her in a vehicle for more than seven hours.
In a report by Malaysian-based news site The Star, local police detailed that the unfortunate incident took place after the mother, a woman in her 30s, sent her two other children to a school near their home.
She was then supposed to drive off to a nearby daycare center to drop off the two-year-old victim, but the mom suddenly opted to do otherwise.
“However, she settled some online business transactions while parked near the daycare center and forgot to drop the victim off,” Petaling Jaya Officer in Charge Mohamad Fakhrudin Abd Hamid said in a statement.
The mother then went home, and it wasn’t until hours later, at 3:35 pm on the same day, that she realized that her baby girl was still in her vehicle. By the time that she had opened the car door, the victim was already out cold.
“The victim was already unconscious and the father managed to call MERS (Malaysian Emergency Response Services) 999 and gave the victim initial treatment. The victim was then sent to Hospital Sungai Buloh for further treatment, but she was pronounced dead at the hospital," Hamid said.
Police stated that they will conduct a post-mortem investigation to determine the cause of the toddler’s death.
This is the third incident where a toddler has died in Malaysia in October due to the same circumstance.
According to The Straits Times, the first incident involved a 16-month-old girl who died after her father left her in the car for hours, having forgotten to drop her off at the daycare center at the university where he worked.
The second incident had a mother similarly forgetting to drop off her eight-month-old girl at the nursery before reporting to work. The baby died after being left in the car at a hospital car park for 10 hours.
Leaders of the Malaysian Association of Social Workers, Childline Foundation, and CRIB (Child Rights Innovation and Betterment) Foundation emphasized the dire need for parents to pay better attention to their children, explaining that a child in a closed vehicle under the sun can die within just 20 to 30 minutes.